Legislature Puts Up $33M for Licensing Modernization

State legislators have included funding for the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR) to “acquire a modern and comprehensive licensing system” with a $32.9 million allocation.

The funding lines up with the agency’s top exceptional item request as submitted last year in its Legislative Appropriations Request (LAR).

When the TDLR presented its modernization planning during an Aug. 30, 2022, oversight committee meeting, Senior Deputy Executive Director Christina Kaiser said the agency has 875,000 licensees including individuals, businesses, facilities and devices such as boilers and elevators.

“Through our licensing functions, we protect the health and safety and prevent consumer harm by ensuring that the people of Texas are served by competent and qualified professionals,” she said.

Licensing has increased by 34 percent since 2015, and anywhere from 85 to 95 percent of licensing is done online. However, there are multiple manual processes still in place once those applications are received via multiple aged systems.

As outlined in the agency’s LAR:

• TDLR issued 239 license types in FY2021.
• There are nine licensing databases in play.
• Fifty-three percent of license applications require manual processes for initial application.
• Thirty-three percent require manual processes for renewal.
• Training on older platforms has become difficult as niche knowledge is often required.
  

“These systems rest largely on out-of-date technologies that do not meet modern security standards or incorporate modern functionalities,” Kaiser said. “There are different workflows associated with each of these systems, many of which are still paper based. And so again, those create significant barriers to efficiency. And importantly, it is extremely difficult to extract data from these systems.”

The road map for modernization was outlined in the August meeting, and the agency worked with the Department of Information Resources (DIR) to create it.

“We are seeking to implement a comprehensive, cloud-based licensing and regulatory solution that is delivered as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), enables scalability of the solution, ensures efficient use of resources and meets specified requirements with minimal custom development,” the LAR reads. “We expect the scope to include full implementation services including project management, solution design and configuration, integration, data migration, documentation, testing, training, solution provisioning and support.”

Technology partners mentioned during the August meeting included DIR and Deloitte, and a Salesforce platform was discussed.

Additional technology money for the upcoming biennium includes:

• Scheduled PC replacement, $82,852 in 2024 and $83,580 in 2025.
• Data center consolidation, $1.6 million in 2024 and $1.4 million in 2025.
  

The agency’s overall budget is set to be $83.3 million in 2024 and $51.7 million in 2025 under the General Appropriations Act.

The Texas Legislature has sent the act to the state comptroller for certification. Once the state’s $321.3 billion budget is certified by the comptroller’s office, it will head to the governor’s office to be signed.