(TNS) — Gov. Josh Shapiro’s novel money-back guarantee that ensures an application for a state permit, license or certification would be processed within a specified timeframe or the application fee would be returned seems to be working in at least one state agency.
Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt told the Senate Appropriations Committee his department has not had to refund any application fees since Nov. 1 when the so-called PAyback.pa.gov program took effect. What’s more, he said the turnaround time for his department’s processing of those applications has decreased significantly; some of them by more than 50%.
Among the examples he offered, the turnaround for an application for a vehicle salesperson’s license dropped from 12 days to one day; real estate brokers, 15 days to seven days, pharmacist, 26 days to five days; and doctors, 43 days to 5 days. Registering a corporation or charitable organizations used to take eight weeks. He said now it is down to two or three days.
“Not only have we reduced those numbers as a result of one, focus on filling vacancies; two, mandatory overtime for some time for our people, but also the volume [of applications] has increased,” Schmidt said. The number of people registering corporations in Pennsylvania has nearly doubled since last year, he said.
A House budget hearing last week with Department of Environmental Protection also revealed it is making progress in reducing the time it takes to issue permits since this PAyback initiative began, said its Acting Secretary Jessica Shirley.
Of 2,400 permits received, only four weren’t reviewed in the money-back guarantee time period, Shirley said.
Permits for projects disturbing only a few acres of ground have turnaround times of a day or a week, Shirley said. More lengthy individualized review permits currently run around 176 days, but the department is on track to cut this to 103 days, according to DEP Acting Executive Deputy Secretary Ramez Ziadeh.
The DEP has worked to fill vacancies in permitting staff, adding 243 permitting personnel over the past year, and asking for 40 more positions in the coming budget, Shirley said.
Shapiro launched the PAyback program as part of a campaign promise to address backlogs in processing permit and license applications. He said he wanted to see state government move “at the speed of business and respond in a timely manner.”
At a Jan. 31, 2023, news conference when he signed the executive order creating PAyback, he directed state agencies to catalog the 2,400 permits, licenses and certifications they issue and recommend an application processing time. The governor’s Office of Transportation and Opportunity and the Commonwealth Office of Digital Experience reviewed those recommendations and came up with the application processing turnaround timeframes, which if exceeded allows for the applicants to get their fee returned without impacting the processing of their application.
When Shapiro signed the executive order, the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry was among those who applauded this initiative as a step in the right direction to streamline and modernize the permitting process, which its spokesman Michael Plummer said “is critical to encouraging growth and economic development in the commonwealth.”
But he added: “There is much work to be done in ensuring an efficient and accountable permitting process in Pennsylvania and we commend the state Senate for passing, with bipartisan support, Senate Bill 350 to codify the governor’s executive order, promote transparency, and implement common sense permitting reform. We urge House lawmakers to pass [Senate Bill 350] to continue this important progress.”
The Department of State alone issues more than 130 different licenses and process more than 80,000 new licenses annually along with more than 375,000 license renewals, most of which are for nurses.
The turnaround time for nurses, however, continues to be a concern. Schmidt and Arion Claggett, commissioner of the Bureau of Professional and Occupations Affairs, said the nursing license turnaround is 36 days. They explained it is in part due to vacancies on its nursing board that reviews those applications as well as the submission of incomplete applications that the bureau’s online licensing system can accept but can’t be processed until all of the necessary information is provided.
But hearing the progress the Department of State has made was encouraging to Sen. Greg Rothman, R-Cumberland/Perry counties, who has championed permitting reform for several years. He called it the best news he has heard during the three weeks of budget hearings the Senate committee has held.
“That’s what we’ve been asking for,” Rothman said. “That’s great news.”
Reflecting on what DEP officials shared with senators about the longer turnaround time it takes to process permit applications, Rothman suggested the state department “share you secrets with the DEP.”
