CHEYENNE - When Lanny Applegate took over the job of state fire marshal and director of the Department of Fire Prevention and Electrical Safety more than two years ago, he inherited an agency "in shambles," as one former employee described it.

In early April 2006, then-Fire Marshal Jim Narva fired two key managers: Terry Phillips, the deputy state fire marshal and fire prevention manager, and Keith Reynolds, the electrical program manager.

The firings followed an investigation by Gov. Dave Freudenthal's office into complaints about employee turnover and the agency's lack of timeliness on electrical inspections and training for local volunteer firefighters.

In June 2006, Narva resigned after three years in the state position.

Freudenthal asked Applegate, then fire administrator for the city of Lander and a Fremont County commissioner, to take over.

A recent Legislative Service Office audit said the department has undergone extensive changes over the past two years.

"The current State Fire Marshal has worked to rebuild relationships among stakeholders and to promote an educational approach to regulation," the audit report said.

The department has a budget of nearly $7.7 million for the '09-10 biennium and 36 staff members, half in locations outside Cheyenne. It also has a Council on Fire Prevention and Electrical Safety in Buildings and an Electrical Board.

"Every aspect of our agency is equally important. It all involves life safety from one end to another," Applegate said last week in an interview.

The department agreed with most of the audit's recommendations, including the need for a new data system to provide guidance to inspectors and managers. Applegate said the new system should be on line in June or July.

The department also agreed on the need to ask the Legislature to revise unclear state laws.

A major concern, Applegate said, is that now the electrical board hears appeals of the board's own decisions. For example, a vendor who wants to put on a class for recertification must have board approval, but if the board turns down the request, the appeal goes back to the Electrical Board.

He would prefer to have the department do the enforcement and appeals that can go to the Electrical Board.

Applegate said the department disagreed with one audit recommendation: to define minimum qualifications for local building inspectors. The requirements, he said, are in the rules already, although the Legislative Service Office may believe they should be more strict.

The report noted that the previous administration had issued reciprocal master electrician licenses in error. The agency also granted some licenses to Colorado master electricians. Wyoming and Colorado do not have a reciprocal agreement for master's licenses, and a Colorado license is not equivalent to Wyoming master's license, the audit said.

When a request to renew one of theses licenses came in, the current department officials caught the error, and the license went to the board on appeal. The board denied the renewal.

The officials estimated another 18 questionable master's licenses will be coming up for renewal.

"You know that's a person's livelihood, so what we did - although it was still not right but I thought was the fairest way to do it - we give these folks a six months' extension to get recertified," Applegate said.

"We try to work with people," he added.

About a half dozen electricians got recertified, but others who worked in the state temporarily did not.

Wyoming has a reciprocal agreement for master's electrician licenses with only Utah, South Dakota and Idaho, the audit said. Wyoming is one of 14 states in a multistate reciprocal licensing agreement for journeyman electricians.

The legislative audit, Applegate said, "helped us."

The last one was conducted 20 years ago. Applegate said he recommended to the legislators that the audit be repeated in 10 years.

Contact Joan Barron at joan.barron@trib.com or by phone at 307-632-1244.