Applying for a professional license or permit from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania will soon come with a money back guarantee under an executive order Gov. Josh Shapiro signed on Tuesday.
The guarantee ensures that anyone applying for a professional license, permit or certification from the state will receive a response by a date certain or the money they submitted with their application will be returned without impacting the processing of their application.
“We know that time is money,” Shapiro said at a Capitol news conference held to announce his fourth executive order of his two-week-old administration. “But for too many Pennsylvanians, when they hear back from state government, when they hear back often feels arbitrary and uncertain and takes way too much time. Sometimes, they don’t hear back at all.”
His executive order is intended to provide certainty and speed to the licensing, permitting and certification process without breaking any statutory or regulatory requirement that goes along with the vetting process of applicants, Shapiro said.
“Government needs to move quicker,” the governor said. “It doesn’t mean in moving quicker, we sacrifice public health or safety or the protection of our environment.”
State agencies now have 90 days to review their licenses, permits and certificates to provide a recommendation to Shapiro for how long the processing of applications should take. Additionally, the administration will review the digital services used to apply for licenses, permits and certifications with eye toward identifying upgrades and modernizations that are needed.
“Then my office will put a firm timeline in place for each and every one of those permits, licenses and applications,” Shapiro said. “If an agency does not respond to an applicant on time, the agency will be required under my executive order to refund that Pennsylvanian’s application fee.”
He said if an agency determines more staff is needed to meet the processing deadlines, he will ask lawmakers to consider that in next year’s budget or he may reallocate staff to provide the additional help.
The timeline for the state to respond to each license or permit application will be made public, he said.
Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward, R-Westmoreland County, hailed this change, saying “providing certainty for workers with occupational licenses is a great complement to the actions already taken by the legislature including: expedited licenses without fees, expanded access to occupational licenses, and virtual continuing education for those already licensed.”
Acting Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt said his agency alone issues more than 130 different licenses and processes more than 80,000 new licenses and more than 375,000 license renewals annually with the bulk of those for nurses.
“It is absolutely vital that we get these skilled professionals to work caring for patients without avoidable delay,” Schmidt said. “The governor has made clear that is a priority.”
Also on hand to applaud this executive order was nurse Maureen May, president of Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals. She said it will help cut the red tape that will improve overall nursing staffing.
“We need more nurses at the bedside and we need more nurses to stay at the bedside,” May said. “What we don’t need is more red tape and in trying to get our licensure.”
According to an analysis by National Public Radio from 2021, Pennsylvania had some of the nation’s longest wait times for issuing nursing licenses. It found more than half of the nursing license applicants had to wait at least three months to get a response.
“We cannot have nurses kept off the job because of paperwork delays,” Shapiro said. “For Pennsylvanians who’ve trained long and hard to start a new career who have met the requirements for their field and pay their license or application fee, it is unacceptable to have to wait and wait and wait and remain in limbo out of work.”
Elizabeth Strong, who owns a hair salon in Allentown, came close to having her business shut down because of delays in the Department of State’s processing of her paperwork when she relocated her salon. It took her state representative’s involvement to straighten out the snafu.
“These are people’s lives on the line here and we’re kind of at the mercy of our state licensing,” Strong said. “Anything that will help improve the efficiency of state licensing for Pennsylvania, especially for a cosmetologist is absolutely amazing.”
Lt. Gov. Austin Davis, whose mother was a hairdresser, said this administration is committed to addressing issues that are barriers to economic growth, barriers that are particularly challenging for Black and brown small business owners.
Among them, Darryl Thomas, owner of a barbershop in West Philadelphia, who compared this forthcoming change in the state’s licensing process to eating an elephant one bite at a time.
He said, “This is what this administration is doing is taking the first bite out of the elephant and giving small businesses the necessary tools that they need to perform the tasks that they are able to do and to provide for their families.”
Shapiro called it a common sense move that is about making state government more customer-service oriented.
“Pennsylvanians, they are the hardest working people. We get thing done,” Shapiro said. “They deserve a government that’s going to stand up and do the same for them.”
Shapiro’s first executive order removed the college degree requirement for more state jobs. Another imposed ethics reforms for employees under his jurisdiction. The third signed last week created the Office of Transformation and Opportunity, described as a one-stop-shop for businesses that want to grow in Pennsylvania.
Jan Murphy may be reached at jmurphy@pennlive.com. Follow her on Twitter at @JanMurphy.
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