Last month, state Rep. David Thomas introduced Ohio House Bill 834, a bill designed to improve delivery of government services.
Ohio’s state government provides a range of services to its residents.
When people lose their jobs, the state provides unemployment insurance. Ohio issues licenses to professionals, benefits to low-income families, permits for environmental and health clearance, and business registration.
How well the state provides these services can have an impact on the economy.
If you lose your job, not being able to get access to unemployment benefits can harm your ability to bounce back and get a new job or support your family in the meantime.
Occupational licensing is a notorious barrier to economic activity, making it more difficult for younger people and immigrants to break into an industry, especially if the licensing system is hard to navigate.
Cumbersome bureaucratic systems can be barriers to businesses trying to start new ventures and low-income households trying to get assistance to put food on the table.
Thomas’s plan is to build a structure run by the Ohio Department of Administrative Services to improve agency service delivery.
The Director of Administrative Services will appoint an executive to serve as a lead in improving service delivery, determine which services are “high-impact,” and prepare an annual report to the governor and legislative leaders on service delivery in Ohio.
This newly appointed lead would be in charge of developing service quality standards and collecting quantitative and qualitative data on service delivery.
Agencies would then each designate their own service delivery officials and develop implementation plans to meet the standards set by the service delivery lead.
On paper, this looks like a plan that could yield benefits for the state of Ohio.
The federal government passed a similar bill that was signed into law early last year, but it is still a bit too early to tell if this will end up yielding any service delivery benefits.
Some states have seen success with similar programs.
Utah’s “Citizen Feedback Program” was created in 2020. Recommendations that have come out of this program have shown that moving people from in-person, paper, and phone services to digital services can save the state tens of millions of dollars in administrative costs.
The New York Experience program launched by the State of New York reports its program has led to licensing wait times falling by 83%, its Division of Human Rights backlog declining by 44%, and its Higher Education Services Corporation eliminating its backlog of 8,000 unprocessed grants and scholarships for students in the state.
The Pennsylvania Governor’s Office reports its Commonwealth Office of Digital Experience has saved taxpayers $10 million by turning to digital services rather than vendors for service delivery.
Government efficiency will not solve all problems in the state. But promoting efficiency in service delivery is low-hanging fruit to help people in need, businesses, students, and workers get what they need from the state of Ohio without more friction and pain than is necessary.
A program like this has the potential for significant upside for the state of Ohio.
This commentary first appeared in the Ohio Capital Journal.
