The COVID-19 pandemic has affected our day to day business and personal lives and communities. The COVID-19 pandemic will have a huge impact on HERS® Raters and Rating Providers. RESNET has a responsibility to its membership to hear your needs and respond with actions that are aimed to ease the burdens that this pandemic has put on us all. The HERS® industry is faced with real issues that affect our bottom line and the health and livelihood of our employees right now. As we continue on this uncertain path, RESNET staff is pursuing options to support Rating Providers and HERS® Rating companies during this crisis. RESNET understands that this pandemic will impact the industry’s ability to meet certain deadlines, and policies regarding reporting and testing. Since the proclamation of the national emergency the RESNET team has been reviewing RESNET’s standards provisions and policies that could hinder this effort to relieve some of the burdens being faced. The RESNET Board Executive Committee has delegated to the RESNET Executive Director Steve Baden the ability to make emergency decisions to temporarily waive provisions that unnecessarily hinder this effort for the duration of the national emergency and beyond by thirty days. With this emergency authority, the following actions will take place immediately: Quality Assurance (QA) testing, and reports: • Automatic 30-Day extension for QA Providers on deadline to submit annual QA report to RESNET º Longer extension permitted if requested on a case by case basis º Current approved extension requests have been between 2-8 weeks • Allow Providers to immediately start using remote QA and lift all restrictions on remote protocol currently in place. º Scott Doyle will soon be sending you a communication with more specifics. º RESNET will host a webinar to let Providers know how to implement remote QA during this national emergency. • Remove the proctor requirement for the current QA Designee exam during this emergency. Testing can be scheduled via the QAD Test Application located here: https://archive.resnet.us/rater/tests/application.aspx ºOnline proctoring services will be permitted for the new QA Designee exam as well as any rater exam retests. Training providers are only permitted to give the access codes to the proctor. Access codes should not be given to the students directly. Any questions should be directed to laurel@resnet.us. º Extensions will be granted on exam licenses as needed. Payment terms for rating fees: • RESNET will waive late fees for the entire year of 2020. • RESNET can negotiate with Providers’ payment plans when necessary. • Flexibility with suspension deadlines on a case-by-case basis. The actions mentioned above are effective immediately and will be in effect until thirty days after the Presidential national emergency is lifted. RESNET staff is also considering other options such as delaying the standard requirement that eliminates QA Delegates on July 1, 2020, and temporary altering payment fees and other flexibility in the rating fee payment process. RESNET Executive Director Steve Baden commented, “The HERS® Industry is a tight-knit community, and in times like this, we have to come together as we have done before. As our nation works through this national emergency, we have to be diligent about how we do business and work together to navigate through this. I am confident that together we will be better once we get through this pandemic, our businesses will be stronger, and like our country, we will become more united through this.” To keep the industry up to date on COVID-19 and RESNET’s initiatives in dealing with the crisis, we have posted a new web page: https://www.resnet.us/about/us/resnet-covid-19-updates/
