If your RCFE administrator certificate expires, you can still renew it for up to four years, but it costs you a $300 delinquency fee and every continuing education hour you missed. That is the rule in Title 22 section 87407(e).
The state does not simply pick up where you left off. It calculates how many hours you would have been required to complete had you stayed certified, and section 87407(e)(2) says the date of computation is the date your renewal application is received by the Administrator Certification Section. You owe all of those hours before your certificate comes back.
Your facility has a problem too, not just you
Title 22 section 87405(a) requires every RCFE to have a qualified and currently certified administrator, and section 87406(a) says a person must hold the certificate before being employed as an administrator. So the moment your certificate lapses, your facility has a compliance problem. If you are the licensee and the administrator, that problem lands on both sides of your business at once.
Four years is where it stops being fixable
Under section 87407(f), a certificate not renewed within four years of its expiration date cannot be renewed, restored, reissued, or reinstated. The same rule appears in Health and Safety Code section 1569.616(f)(6). There is no appeal and no hardship exception written into the regulation.
Section 87407(f)(1) says you begin the certification process over from the beginning. That means the full 80 hour Initial Certification Training Program, the state written exam, the application, and the fees, exactly as if you had never been certified.
How to avoid all of it
Renew on time. Section 87407(d) says your LIC 9214 renewal application must be postmarked on, or up to 90 days before, your expiration date. Send it with proof of your 40 hours and the renewal processing fee, and keep a current criminal record clearance.
On the fee, one note worth having. CDSS currently lists the administrator renewal application fee at $140. The regulation and the statute still print $100, which has not been updated. Pay what CDSS currently lists, and if your certificate has lapsed, the $300 delinquency fee is on top of it.
If your certificate has already lapsed, do not wait, because the hours you owe keep growing while the clock runs. NCPI’s 40 hour RCFE and ARF renewal course covers every required subject in one place, live on Zoom with a CDSS approved provider, and it is $239.99, or $199 for returning students, the lowest price in California. Our family has been doing this for 30 years. Call or text 619-322-9578 or email contact@ncpicare.com and we will tell you exactly where you stand.
