Pennsylvania is an efficiency north star, expert says
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A permitting reform effort in Pennsylvania could serve as a model for other states looking to streamline operations and improve service delivery, according to a fellow at the Institute for Responsive Government.
Across the U.S., several states are developing legislative entities aimed at reducing spending and improving government efficiency following the creation of the federal Department of Government Efficiency. But before governments rush to cut positions or downsize agencies to do so, one expert underscored Pennsylvania’s permitting reform as a model for other states looking to make efficiency gains.
As state and local leaders consider how to innovate government services for the public, they should be cautious of adopting a “chainsaw approach,” like what appears to be happening in the federal government, said Donald Moynihan, a fellow at the Institute for Responsive Government and professor at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.
Taking the time to understand how government services work, creating the staff and technological capacity to address pain points and developing benchmarks and performance metrics could be a more effective way to reach governments’ efficiency goals, he explained. Those are critical steps Pennsylvania officials took when reforming its permitting system, and research shows it could be paying off.
When it comes to permitting modernization, “states are quite varied in their approach,” Moynihan said. “You're apt to hear both stories of states taking too long to complete services, as well as states that seem to have figured out how to do it more quickly.”
In Pennsylvania’s case, officials "perceived they were behind the curve compared to other states, and that there was a business interest in trying to modernize their permitting system,” he explained.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, for instance, nurses in Pennsylvania faced a wait time of at least three months before getting their licenses to practice, according to a report published last month by the Institute for Responsive Government, which Moynihan authored. Many workers flocked to other states where they could find jobs quicker, putting Pennsylvania’s public health at risk. Clunky permitting processes also delayed the opening of businesses, leading to financial losses for local communities and state revenue.
In a move to improve the permitting process for individuals and businesses, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro signed an executive order in 2024 that aimed to ultimately cut wait times for licenses to be processed. It directed the state’s Office of Transformation and Opportunity and the Commonwealth Office of Digital Experience, or CODE PA, to analyze existing permitting processes, generate solutions and implement improvements.
Gathering baseline data, like how many permitting processes exist and the average time it takes for them to be processed, is an important starting point to identify problem areas, Moynihan said, but also to develop specific performance targets for improvement.
Pennsylvania officials found that across 22 state agencies, there were about 2,400 types of permits. For business licenses, the state saw about 1,000 new requests each day but only had the capacity to review 1,200 applications, according to the report. That meant applicants could wait up to 8 weeks for their licenses to be processed, leading to a backlog of more than 20,000 requests for officials to sift through.
OTO officials were able to devise a solution from those findings, which entailed temporarily reallocating workers from other agencies to assist with resolving the backlog of business licenses. Over a weekend, the transferred staff tackled the backlog and reduced the 8-week wait period to two days, according to the report.
Better data also helped the state reset expectations for processing times, as “one official noted that if a target for a specific permit is 30 days, and their average performance is 12 days, this allows a lowering of the target,” the report stated.
With more granular information on how permits were reviewed and processed along with community input, CODE PA created the PAyback tool, which offers individuals a way to apply for a refund if the government does not process their permit application within a certain amount of time. Over the last year, the PAyback system and other permitting reforms have helped the state reduce the verification time for small businesses from 15 days to 10 days and cut the wait-period for new teachers’ license processes from two to three weeks, according to the report.
Officials also developed agency-level dashboards to help authorities better track and manage things like pending applications, which can help them prioritize those approaching their deadlines, according to the report.
“In many respects, the Pennsylvania project was sort of an anti-DOGE approach to government,” Moynihan said. “They worked quickly, but … they took the time to understand the processes that they were changing and then built something better based on that consultation.”
Ultimately, he added, effectively improving government services for constituents largely relies on “investing in capacity, talking to public service workers, being a little humble about what you know and what you don’t know, as well as having genuine leadership commitment to make those services work better.”