H. B. 2068
(By Delegate Fragale)
[Introduced January 14, 1998
; referred to the
Committee on Health and Human Resources then
Government Organization.]
A BILL to amend chapter sixteen of the code of West Virginia,
one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, by adding
thereto a new article, designated article thirty-five,
relating to establishing minimum standards for instruction
of food service safety and sanitation; creating an
accreditation procedure; defining terms; establishing
qualifications for providers; setting forth a minimum
curriculum plan; designating type of study; setting forth
minimum examination rules; providing for required levels of
comprehension for instruction; creating a commission;
listing fields of experience from which members of the
commission may be drawn; establishing civil penalties for
violation of this article; providing for duties of provider; providing for open meetings of the commission; providing for
the course topics for different levels of experience;
providing that the public health sanitation division within
the health and human services department shall implement and
regulate this article; and providing for responsibility for
the expenses of the commission.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That chapter sixteen of the code of West Virginia, one
thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, be amended by
adding thereto a new article, designated article thirty-five, to
read as follows:
ARTICLE 35. FOOD SERVICE SAFETY AND SANITATION.
§16-35-1. Scope.
This article establishes the minimum standards for
instruction of food service safety and sanitation for all food
employees working in tax-supported food service operations in
West Virginia.
§16-35-2. Purpose.
The purpose of this legislation is to assure competent,
applied food service instruction in relevant principles and
practices of food safety and microbiology. The intent is to
maximize proactive measures to prevent food borne disease and to minimize costly food spoilage and wastage in all West Virginia
public institutions where food is served for public consumption
and therefore, introduce and apply productive hazard analysis of
critical control points (HACCP) concepts to food service
operations.
§16-35-3. General considerations.
Provisions of this article establish an accreditation
procedure to assure competency in basic food microbiology food
safety teaching, learning and practice of food safety principles
by cooks, food handlers and others in institutional food service
operations in West Virginia. An important aspect of this article
is the oversight requirement for hard copy student evaluation of
training, provider recordkeeping and accreditated curriculum
plans. The regulations outlined herein are in direct support of
existing regulations that require eighteen continuing education
hours annually for all school food service personnel. Of these
eighteen hours, ten would be required in food safety-food
microbiology as identified herein.
§16-35-4. Definitions.
As used in this article:
(a) "Clinical" means a hospital or nursing home setting
where stringent conditions of sanitation are most necessary because of the high risk group of consumer clients. Drinking
water, potable water that meets 40CFR part 141 national drinking
water standards.
(b) "Clock hours" means a fifty-minute continuous segment of
direct or self-study.
(c) "Course of instruction" means ten clock hours of
approved, direct and indirect participation or direct alone,
which is equal to one continuing education unit (1 CEU).
(d) "Critical control point" means any point in a specific
food related processing, storage, cooking, serving, receiving or
holding activity where loss of control may result in an
unacceptable health risk.
(e) "Curriculum" means a written plan of learning activities
that contains clock hour sequences of the subject matter titles
on a half-hour basis or in twenty and thirty minute segments.
(f) "Curriculum evaluation" means an ongoing evaluation of
each course taught. At a minimum it shall include the class list
(names and addresses), final exams of students, and actual
feedback critiques by student recipients. Each provider shall
keep these records for five years and make them available for
review by the authority and commission upon request; and
"curriculum content" means the subject matter and approaches used in food safety training as set forth in sections five, six and
seven of this article.
(g) "Direct participation" means prior approved face-to-face
live interaction between instructor and students.
(h) "Equipment" means any article used in the operation of
a food establishment such as a freezer, grinder, hood, ice maker,
meatblock, mixer, oven, reach in refrigerator, scale, slicer,
stove, table temperature measuring devices for ambient air, a
food product, vending machines, or an apparatus or supplies for
washing.
(i) "Food" means any raw, cooked or processed edible
substance, ice, beverage or ingredient used or intended for use
or for sale, in whole or in part, for human consumption.
(j) "Foodborne disease" means any chemical or biological
poisoning caused by toxins or otherwise as the result of eating
contaminated food.
(k) "Food employee" means any permit-holder person in
charge, person having direct supervisory or management duties, a
person on the payroll, volunteer or any other person working in
an institutional food establishment and their food suppliers who
works directly with unpackaged or packaged food, food equipment
or utensils or food contact surfaces.
(l) "Food microbiology training" means instructions that
will include in lay-terms, basic nature of spoilage and
disease-producing agents, causes of vectors, cross contaminants,
contact time, temperature, as effects on growth of microorganisms
in cafeterias, refrigerators, kitchens and in equipment.
(m) "Food safety/sanitation training" means instruction that
will include proactive measures of sanitation and contamination
prevention, official food process and storage requirements as
prescribed by the state health department and HACCP
considerations and applications in cafeteria settings.
(n) "Food safety training" means the annual requirement of
which ten hours will be applied to food microbiology training for
every food employee.
(o) "HACCP system" means an in-place day-to-day system
involving all food employees of a service to prevent loss of
control of critical control points and documentation of HACCP
activities.
(p) "HACCP team" means the identified day-to-day food
employees HACCP trained according to provisions of this article.
(q) "Hazard" means any biological, physical or chemical
property that may cause an unacceptable consumer health risk.
(r) "Indirect participation" means prior approved self-study or correspondence studies in conjunction with direct
participation.
(s) "Institutional food establishment" means any public
eating place supported by state tax revenues such as, but not
limited to, school and hospital cafeterias of state-supported
institutions and their food suppliers; processing and storage
areas.
(t) "Instructor" means one who possesses a bachelor's degree
or higher in food or public health microbiology or has extensive
five years or more training in food safety-laboratory sciences
and epidemiology.
(u) "Instructor of record" means an employee of the approved
provider who, at a minimum, has an earned masters of science in
microbiology, epidemiology and at least five years successful
teaching experience in off-campus, adult education in food
safety.
(v) "Off-campus adult education" means nontraditional
education for the out-of-school adult via seminars, workshops,
correspondence courses for approved, continuing education credit.
(w) "Potentially hazardous food" means a food that is
natural or synthetic and is in a form capable of rapid and
progressive growth of infectious or toxigenic microorganisms.
(x) "Providers" means public and private entities that
develop, supervise and teach food safety education subject matter
and maintain student and instructor records.
(y) "Sanitation" means the application of cumulative heat or
chemicals on cleaned food contact surfaces that when evaluated
for efficacy yield a reduction of five logs (99.999%) of
representative disease microorganisms of public health
importance.
(z) "Subcourse of instruction" means one or more clock hours
of approved instruction. Each hour is equal to 0.1 CEU of
credit.
(aa) "Training" means the annual requirement for eighteen
clock hours of relevant continuing education in food service
operations.
§16-35-5. Framework for food safety instruction; duration of
teaching and study; student involvement, crediting,
evaluations.
(a) Self-study or correspondence requires mail-back
completed examinations before credit can be awarded to students
with a passing grade of seventy percent. All certificates of
course completion and students' grades shall be mailed by
providers within two weeks of receipt of examinations from students.
(b) In no case, may vendor visits or exhibit viewing or
expositions, trade show attendance or any other unapproved
teaching substitute for any part of required, approved clock
hours for food safety training. Credit may not be given for
duplicate courses in a two-year period or carry-over credit from
prior years.
(c) Providers shall be private or public entities recognized
for their previous expertise in food microbiology training. The
chief representative of the provider or his or her delegate
(instructors of record) shall have five or more years
out-of-school adult education experience and hold an earned
masters of science degree or higher in food sanitation and
microbiology. In addition, the designated representative shall
have successfully taught laboratory courses in microbiology and
conducted active research in food safety. He or she must
directly participate in all instruction and be an observer of all
courses taught by the provider and shall be the designated
instructor of record on all course outlines evaluations.
(d) Applicants shall complete the official application forms
including their curriculum plan and submit these to the review
authority by the first day of July of each year.
(e) At a minimum, the submitted curriculum plan shall
include:
(1) Course, title or subcourse title (if less than ten clock
hours);
(2) Teaching objectives;
(3) Format of learning (seminar, workshop, etc.);
(4) References for instruction, including single copies of
all texts, course outlines, exams and handouts;
(5) Instructor of record (include biography);
(6) Assistant instructors if any (include biography); and
(7) Running schedule of activities by topic (see example
below).
Time Duration
Topics for 3 Clock Hours;
3-50 minute sessions
8:00 - 8:30AM 30 Minutes Topic 1
8:30 - 8:50
20 Minutes Topic 2
9:00 - 9:3030 Minutes Topic 3
9:30 - 9:5020 Minutes Topic 4
10:00 - 10:3030 Minutes Topic 5
10:30 - 10:5020 Minutes Review, Topics 1-5
(complete as needed with Written Exam of
additional entries) Topics 1-5
Exam period will not
exceed 30 minutes
(f) Examinations may be open book but shall be closely
monitored and the sole work of the individual taking the exam.
For correspondence examinations, students shall provide a sworn,
signed affidavit by their supervisor that completed exams were the work of each student. Each topic shall be covered by at
least four examination questions, and no topics may be omitted
from testing.
§16-35-6. Course contents.
(a) Providers and instructors must realize that the intended
audience, while intelligent, has probably not taken college-level
courses in microbiology or other laboratory sciences or perhaps
high school science courses, either. Therefore all instruction
must be geared to a basic-hands-on level of understanding with
the presumption of no prior science preparations by the student,
who is dedicated, intelligent and eager to learn.
(b) Pursuant to subsection (a) of this section, a commission
of three members shall be formed, chosen on the basis of one of
the following experiences in adult continuing education, each
having served for fifteen or more years in one of these fields,
and no two members may be from the same career field, category
1-5, listed below:
(1) County extension teaching;
(2) Food microbiology, epidemiology, clinical microbiology;
(3) Public health sanitation, food engineering;
(4) Clinical food service management; and
(5) Medical, public health laboratory management.
(c) The commission members serve a rotating three-year term
and shall assist in the review of all applications by providers
and the monitoring of course presentation and recordkeeping. The
commission shall meet twice yearly or more often if necessary;
keep orderly records including minutes of meetings and a file of
acceptable providers and courses taught. A state sanitarian, or
his or her equivalent shall serve ex officio and provide
secretarial support to the commission.
(d) Providers shall keep all student records for at least
five years. For every student, providers shall submit prior to
the thirtieth day of June of each year a list of those food
employees who qualified with credit that year. Providers shall
renew applications each year by the thirtieth day of July; and
every two years submit new curriculum plans. Each instructor of
record and assistant instructor must be approved by the
commission prior to teaching in any approved provider program in
the subject matter area within the scope of this bill.
(e) Directors of food services and their chief
administrators shall provide the commission a list of food
employees and those on the list who currently have qualified each
year prior to the thirtieth day of June with exception of those
in school lunch programs where food employees, for a given school year, will be qualified preferably on a basis of an extended
sixty-day grace period. In no case, may duplicate instruction be
given to count for two successive years of continuing education
qualifications.
(f) Each recipient of instruction is honor-bound to do
individual work on all study materials and examinations and
within the purview of this law may apply every ten approved clock
hours as are post high school credit for monthly pay increments,
in accordance with current regulations for monthly staff
development pay incentives.
§16-35-7. Review and consequences of violation.
Any party who knowingly falsifies any documents or
misrepresents his or her authority shall be fined not less than
one thousand dollars and dismissed from employment, if the person
has intentionally
violated any requirements of this law.
§16-35-8. Notification to commission.
Providers shall furnish a sample copy of their contract for
training including a fees schedule. Providers shall notify the
commission of date and location of contracted training and the
name of the provider at least three working days in advance of
training.
§16-35-9. Open meetings.
Meetings of the commission shall be open to the public. Any
member of the commission reserves the right to visit any
in-progress training and make observations, thereof.
§16-35-10. Responsibilities of the parties.
Authority is vested for review and final decisions within
the health and human services department, public health
sanitation division, whose responsibility it is to implement this
article.
§16-35-11. Expenses.
All expenses for training shall be borne by recipients or
their immediate employers at the local level with exception of
the expenses for printing and other services by the commission
which will include travel, per diem and one hundred twenty-five
dollars per day honorarium for official participation at
commission meetings. The authority shall provide secretarial
services to the commission, as needed, in most cases, commission
business can be handled by routine mail and telephone
conferences.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to set minimum standards
for instruction of food service safety and sanitation for all
food employees working in tax supported food service operations
in West Virginia; and to create a commission to implement the
provisions of this article.
This article is new; therefore, strike-throughs and
underscoring have been omitted.