Contractors: civil penalties.

Senator Archuleta’s measure reframes contractor regulation by elevating the minimum civil penalties for unlicensed contracting and for certain licensed-violations, indexing those penalties to inflation every five years, and expanding the Contractors State License Board’s reserve-fund target to roughly one year of expenditures. It would take effect in a staged way, with an enhanced enforcement framework tied to unlicensed contracting and a broader adjustment of penalties and reserves set to operate on a July 1, 2026 timeline.

A key enforcement mechanism creates a citation process when the registrar has probable cause that a person is acting as a contractor or salesperson without a valid license or registration. The registrar would notify a public entity within 72 hours if a contract is proposed or awarded to an unlicensed contractor, and the citation could be issued to the responsible officer or employee of the public entity. Each citation would include an order of abatement and a civil penalty within defined ranges, and the sanctions would be in addition to other remedies. The registrar would prescribe procedures for issuing citations, and the board would adopt regulations governing penalty assessment, with the effect that these actions are separate from civil or criminal remedies.

The bill revises the civil-penalty framework to include both general and more specific penalties. For general violations, penalties would be set with a minimum of 500 dollars and a maximum of 8,000 dollars. For violations tied to certain licensing provisions, penalties would range from a minimum of 1,500 dollars to a maximum of 30,000 dollars. In addition, the board would adjust all minimum penalties for inflation every five years, with rounding guidelines. A separate provision would become operative on July 1, 2026, and would also provide for inflation-based adjustments, including specific rounding rules, with a broader framework that interacts with another measure. The bill also includes a provision to fix the board’s reserve fund level at approximately 12 months of expenditures by adjusting fee revenues accordingly.

The measure consolidates a broader policy context around penalties and financial administration of the licensing board, while outlining contingent inter-bill conditions that determine when certain amendments become operative. In sum, it expands the penalty spectrum for unlicensed and other violations, introduces inflation indexing, and raises the reserve-fund target, all within a structured timing and regulatory framework designed to govern enforcement and board finances.