Summer 2000
MARYLAND'S ELECTRONIC LICENSING ...(continued from page 1) Funding Most of our business occupations and professional licensing boards and commissions in Maryland receive general fund appropriations. In the general fund environment, state licensing agencies are not often the recipients of significant increases. Schools, public safety, health, environmental and economic development programs have first call on the lion’s share of available funding. In 1996 when funding an electronic licensing system first became an issue, Maryland was just emerging from a recession and five successive years of very tough budgets, where cuts were the norm. Governor Parris Glendening took office in January of 1995. He established himself very quickly as a fan and advocate of the application of technology to government operations and the delivery of government services. During the 1996 session of the Maryland General Assembly, the Governor requested and the legislature acted to create the Maryland Technology Investment Fund to which State agencies could competitively apply for grants to fund innovative technology solutions. By having a mature proposal in place at exactly the right time, the Department received 1.5 million dollars from the Fund during the FY 97 and FY 98 grant cycles. These dollars were used to fund the state’s project development contract with IBM. The remaining $500,000 was appropriated from general funds over several fiscal years to cover hardware purchases and upgrades.	Usage In the popular baseball movie "Field of Dreams" the unseen voice tells the main character, "If you build it they will come." A government official would likely respond, "can I get that in writing." No one wants their project written up in a magazine or newsletter as a great concept that failed because the target audience refused to use it. As we cycled through the occupations and professions we hoped for an average usage rate of 30% to 35% via the Internet. CPA’s came in at 73%. Electricians, HVAC contractors, plumbers and Home Improvement contractors averaged at 50%. The lowest figure was barbers at 20%. In the two years since real estate was first brought on to the system, numbers for the first renewal by group significantly exceed our expectations. 53% of renewing real estate licensees used the Internet. Design professionals averaged about 54%. We used the implementation of electronic licensing to convert from a set date renewal for all licensees in an occupation to staggered licensing. Currently licensees renew every day of the year. The usage numbers for April of 2000 underscore the rapid evolution of the Internet in the daily life of a licensee in Maryland. Real Estate Appraisers were over 90% Internet renewals. CPA’s at 83%, Real Estate at 73%, everyone except barbers over 60% and even barbers nearly doubled their Internet usage in one year to 38%. Since the system was turned on, nearly 100,000 transactions previously done by paper have moved to the Internet. We are also beginning to see increased usage of the	other transaction options available over the Internet. These statistics confirm the wisdom of one key decision made early in the development process. We determined that we would not mail renewing licensees the traditional paper applications they were used to getting. They received Internet instructions and their PIN number to conduct business electronically. The last section of the instructions indicated how to secure the paper form if you wanted to conduct business the old fashioned way. Considering that we are talking about 170,000 licensees, the amount of "flack" received for this approach was very modest. Importantly, neither elected nor appointed officials questioned or objected to the decision. We count this approach as central to our success in building the level of use we are seeing. This discussion has been limited to two main issues concerning Maryland’s Electronic Licensing Initiative. There are certainly other barriers to successful implementation that could be discussed and many other issues to be considered when contemplating a project of this scope. Those of us involved with it spent a very intense three years to get the job done. The bottom line is that if you can fund it and build it, your licensees will come and use it. Governor Glendening often cites Electronic Licensing as exactly where government needs to be in adapting E- Commerce to the delivery of service to our customers. It was worth the effort. For more information about this project, please contact Harry Loleas at hloleas@dllr.state.md.us

Schools, public safety, health, environmental and economic development programs have first call on the lion’s share of available funding. In 1996 when funding an electronic licensing system first became an issue, Maryland was just emerging from a recession and five successive years of very tough budgets, where cuts were the norm.

Governor Parris Glendening took office in January of 1995. He established himself very quickly as a fan and advocate of the application of technology to government operations and the delivery of government services. During the 1996 session of the Maryland General Assembly, the Governor requested and the legislature acted to create the Maryland Technology Investment Fund to which State agencies could competitively apply for grants to fund innovative technology solutions. By having a mature proposal in place at exactly the right time, the Department received 1.5 million dollars from the Fund during the FY 97 and FY 98 grant cycles. These dollars were used to fund the state’s project development contract with IBM. The remaining $500,000 was appropriated from general funds over several fiscal years to cover hardware purchases and upgrades.

Usage
In the popular baseball movie "Field of Dreams" the unseen voice tells the main character, "If you build it they will come." A government official would likely respond, "can I get that in writing." No one wants their project written up in a magazine or newsletter as a great concept that failed because the target audience refused to use it. As we cycled through the occupations and professions we hoped for an average usage rate of 30% to 35% via the Internet.

CPA’s came in at 73%. Electricians, HVAC contractors, plumbers and Home Improvement contractors averaged at 50%. The lowest figure was barbers at

20%. In the two years since real estate was first brought on to the system, numbers for the first renewal by group significantly exceed our expectations. 53% of renewing real estate licensees used the Internet. Design professionals averaged about 54%.

We used the implementation of electronic licensing to convert from a set date renewal for all licensees in an occupation to staggered licensing. Currently licensees renew every day of the year. The usage numbers for April of 2000 underscore the rapid evolution of the Internet in the daily life of a licensee in Maryland. Real Estate Appraisers were over 90% Internet renewals. CPA’s at 83%, Real Estate at 73%, everyone except barbers over 60% and even barbers nearly doubled their Internet usage in one year to 38%. Since the system was turned on, nearly 100,000 transactions previously done by paper have moved to the Internet. We are also beginning to see increased usage of the

other transaction options available over the Internet. These statistics confirm the wisdom of one key decision made early in the development process. We determined that

we would not mail renewing licensees the traditional paper applications they were used to getting. They received Internet instructions and their PIN number to conduct business electronically. The last section of the instructions indicated how to secure the paper form if you wanted to conduct business the old fashioned way. Considering that we are talking about 170,000 licensees, the amount of "flack" received for this approach was very modest. Importantly, neither elected nor appointed officials questioned or objected to the decision. We count this approach as central to our success in building the level of use we are seeing.

This discussion has been limited to two main issues concerning Maryland’s Electronic Licensing Initiative. There are certainly other barriers to successful implementation that could be discussed and many other issues to be considered when contemplating a project of this scope. Those of us involved with it spent a very intense three years to get the job done. The bottom line is that if you can fund it and build it, your licensees will come and use it. Governor Glendening often cites Electronic Licensing as exactly where government needs to be in adapting E- Commerce to the delivery of service to our customers. It was worth the effort.

For more information about this project, please contact Harry Loleas at hloleas@dllr.state.md.us

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