It’s governmental malpractice that the state of Pennsylvania does not have a comprehensive list of permits and licenses, along with an official schedule for how long issuing decisions will take. Gov. Josh Shapiro’s executive order requiring the creation of such a schedule will be — if truly enforced — one of the most important economic development moves the state government could make.
Whether for a nurse waiting for a license to begin serving patients, or an entrepreneur planning to start a small business, or a multinational corporation looking to expand operations, predictability in licensing and permitting is essential. Indefinite delays and inconsistent communication send a clear signal from Harrisburg that Pennsylvania does not value the applicant’s time, talents or money.
This has practical consequences. For instance, the commonwealth’s absurd three-months average wait for a nursing license makes the hospital staffing crisis worse and hurts patients. Small businesses close, or never open to begin with, because they can’t get essential paperwork when they need it. Potentially transformative investments from large companies go to other states, like Ohio, with more efficient processes. In the last two cases, badly needed jobs are lost.
Mr. Shapiro claims, and we join anyone who’s ever dealt with the state bureaucracy in agreeing, that licensing and permitting efficiency can be increased without sacrificing safety or attention to detail. Pennsylvania’s unusually slow and unpredictable processes aren’t the result of unusually careful scrutiny. They’re the result of decades of built-up bad habits and a lack of accountability.
The executive order gives every state department that issues licenses and permits three months to provide the governor’s office with a full list of its offerings, and a timeline for answering applicants for each one. Mr. Shapiro’s team will then study each list and assign firm deadlines, balancing the bureaucracy’s duties of fairness, thoroughness and efficiency.
And those deadlines will have teeth: Departments will be required to refund application fees when they take too long. Nothing motivates a bureaucratic fiefdom like the threat of losing some cashflow.
There will be some hiccups. Some departments will need to make serious changes to their professional cultures to make the new deadlines work. Others will need new staff or more funding to improve their systems — requests Mr. Shapiro says he and the legislature will be happy to consider in his first budget this summer.
This executive order is a clear signal that the old way of doing business with, and within, state government is being seriously challenged. It helps shift state government from a posture of imperiousness, which forced residents and businesses to work with it on its own terms, to a posture of service. It won’t happen overnight, but it should have happened a long time ago.
First Published: February 8, 2023, 5:00 a.m.
Updated: February 8, 2023, 5:01 a.m.
