Permits. Licenses. Certificates. Catalogs. Deadlines. Pretty dull stuff. But the unsexy work of streamlining bureaucratic approvals, especially of construction projects, may be one of the most important projects in Harrisburg right now.
The administration of Gov. Josh Shapiro is moving in the right direction, but momentum must continue.
In his first weeks in office, Mr. Shapiro signed an executive order requiring every department and agency under his purview to submit a list of all the permits, licenses and certificates it offers, along with processing time estimates. Legislators should bolster Mr. Shapiro’s efforts by passing Senate Bill 350, which would codify much of the governor’s executive order and add a requirement for departments and agencies to create tracking websites. The websites would enable applicants to see the progress of their review in real time. If Domino’s can do it for your pizza, Harrisburg can do it for your permits and licenses.
Mr. Shapiro’s inventory of state departments and agencies was completed by the May 1 deadline, the governor’s office said. It represents the first-ever catalog of the roughly 2,400 permits, licenses and certificates offered by the state. Over the next few months, the Shapiro administration will work with each agency to identify opportunities for streamlining, and will set firm deadlines for each application — with fines payable to the applicants for delays.
Early findings from the survey suggest most processing delays aren’t due to regulatory or statutory policies, but staffing and IT inefficiencies, which the executive branch can fix. A fresh set of eyes and a few software changes have already reduced the maximum processing time for one important corporate registration from two months to three days.
Permitting reform has become a bipartisan issue for states across the country, as well as the federal government. In recent remarks in California, U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm stressed the importance of state-level efficiencies to securing federal grants attracting manufacturing jobs.
The Shapiro administration’s efficiency efforts are about not only convenience for everyday Pennsylvanians, but also competitiveness for corporate projects and federal subsidies. The Harrisburg bureaucracy cannot afford to backslide.
The current reckoning of state permits, licenses and certificates, and the creation of efficient and realistic deadlines, can’t be a one-time process. The governor’s office should check in biannually to ensure departments and agencies are maintaining the standards they’re agreed to. Perhaps once a decade, the state should rework the entire catalog, including deadlines, to ensure it is up-to-date.
Making state government work better was a key talking point for candidate Josh Shapiro. As governor, his permitting reform work should lay the foundation for more streamlining of state government functions.
— Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP
