DEEP NDDB Report Offers Lessons for All State Agencies

“Streamlining permitting” is one of the most frequently invoked and least frequently defined sentiments expressed when states look to be more economically competitive.

Its appeal makes sense. Rather than needing to cut regulation that often protects society, we could simply administer that regulation better.

How we actually arrive at a better system, however, is often elusive. In part, this is because every regulation or permit is different with unique challenges with respect to how they are implemented.

Despite this challenge, the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection’s recent study into how to better run the Natural Diversity Data Base program provides an excellent lesson into how to approach “streamlining” and contains within it themes that should be considered across a wide range of topics, rather than just this one narrow area. 

For some background, NDDB is the program through which DEEP monitors and communicates the presence of species protected by the Connecticut Endangered Species Act.

Understanding the presence of these species is critical during the course of development so as to mitigate the impact such development may have on local wildlife.

Critical Recommendations

However, the business community has long expressed challenges in utilizing this program, leading to delayed development and frustration.

The DEEP report is a response to that frustration and contains critical recommendations on how the program could improve going forward.  

The report itself is fascinating, but more importantly, it provides a framework that could be used as an example for streamlining across government.

The report provides a framework that could be used as an example for streamlining across government.

The findings and recommendations focus on improving the system across three main categories: efficiency, transparency, and predictability.

These terms came directly from the enabling legislation, but the reviewers summarize what the terms mean nicely: “efficiency generally manifests as short timeframes and straightforward processes, transparency as clearly understood communication, mapping, and decision-making criteria, and predictability as foreseeable outcomes and consistency across timelines, processes, and data.”

One could easily see the same terminology cutting across government functions, from labor, to consumer protection, and beyond.

The terms may be simple, but throughout the report they provide an anchor point to which researchers can call back to when providing context for findings and recommendations. 

Data Drives Decisionmaking

In addition to the useful framework the report provides, it further validates many similar issues that the CBIA Foundation for Economic Growth & Opportunity has uncovered across its research in other domains.

For instance, the first recommendation the report offers is to “Invest in Mapping”. Mapping, in the NDDB context, is a critical communication tool, providing important context for property owners or prospective developers as they determine the feasibility of a given project. 

Many of the recommendations in the report are downstream of this one, as having good data is fundamental to having informed discussions between business and regulators.

Good data provides individuals and businesses the clarity and confidence they need to make decisions.

We consistently hear these sentiments in other domains, such as workforce development.

Our recently published Workforce & Education Strategy Blueprint uncovered similar needs in our nine-to-12 education system, where career pathways are often not effectively communicated and school resources are not efficiently allocated.

Good data provides individuals and businesses the clarity and confidence they need to make decisions, while simultaneously providing administrators the information they need to effectively prioritize. 

Furthermore, this report reinforces the importance of coordination across government and a commitment to continuous improvement.

Trust, Collaboration

Another recommendation in the report is to “Make ezFile Easy”, referring to the online filing portal for applicants in the program.

The report notes, however, that this system is managed by DAS/BITS and is outside DEEP’s purview. This distinction highlights a common challenge when trying to streamline processes, which is the cross-agency coordination required to implement change.

Across recommendations, the researchers emphasize the importance of trust between the regulated community and the agency, and consistency in the execution of the law.

Leadership and coordination are central to the success of regulatory reform.

Naturally, this will mean continued monitoring of progress toward goals and frequently revisiting the findings in the report.

These findings are not all that dissimilar to what we heard creating Opportunity Connecticut, namely that leadership and coordination are central to the success of regulatory reform.

Implementing recommendations from Opportunity Connecticut, such as the creation of a chief operating officer or Secretary of Commerce, could better ensure this ultimately happens moving forward. 

Tradeoffs

All of this is not to say that streamlining comes free of tradeoffs.

One recommendation is to prioritize early consultation. More direct consultation provides greater clarity to applicants earlier in the process, which is valuable for transparency but represents a trade off with efficiency.

Allocating time to one process necessitates allocating less to another. Finding the right balance in resource allocation is critical to having a well-functioning system, something that business and government may find they have in common. 

Agencies across government could learn much from this report.

Ultimately, to streamlining permitting means something different depending on the context in which the effort is deployed.

As the NDDB study illustrates however, even when we explore the nitty gritty details of more niche topic areas, there are still broadly applicable lessons we can take with us.

Agencies across government could learn much from this report, and hopefully in the process find new ways to make government more efficient, transparent, and predictable. 

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About the author: Dustin Nord is the director of the CBIA Foundation for Economic Growth & Opportunity.