Sanders says state agencies found 344 ways to speed up permits and licenses; 84 need lawmakers’ approval

LITTLE ROCK — Thirteen state departments told Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders they found 344 ways to make Arkansas permits and licenses faster, cheaper or easier to get, but most of those changes are still on paper, and 84 of them will need votes from the Legislature when it convenes in January.

Sanders announced the results Wednesday, eight months after she signed Executive Order 26-04 on Feb. 16. Her office says 51 of the changes have already been made and 24 more are underway.

“We don’t grow our economy by putting government in charge and telling everyone what to do; we grow our economy by getting government out of the way and letting entrepreneurs and small businesses do what they do best,” Sanders said in the release.

What the order required

The order gave every cabinet-level agency, board and commission that issues a permit, license or certification 120 days to review how it does that work. Agencies were told to look for steps that could be cut or put online, laws and rules that slow things down, ways to line up timelines when a project needs permits from more than one agency, and uses for artificial intelligence. Each department then had 180 days from the signing, or until mid-August, to send the governor a written improvement plan with deadlines and performance measures.

The order also told agencies to publish timelines for major permits, build “one-stop” online portals where they could, run reviews at the same time instead of one after another, and give applicants real-time status updates and a single point of contact. When she signed it, Sanders said the order “puts people before paperwork,” pointing to “a barber getting a license, a city building new water lines, or an international corporation setting up a new supply chain,” KATV reported at the time.

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Where the 344 stand

The governor’s office posted a 19-page list of all 344 findings, dated October 2026. Each line states the problem a department found, what it did or recommends, whether the fix needs a new law, a new rule or just a change in how the office works, and its status.

The Department of Health had the most findings at 63, followed by Agriculture with 55, Education with 42, Human Services with 31 and Energy and Environment with 30. Labor and Licensing and Public Safety had 24 each; Parks, Heritage and Tourism and Finance and Administration 15 each; Corrections 13; Commerce and Veterans Affairs 12 each; and the Department of Inspector General eight.

The release says 84 findings need statutory or rule changes from the Legislature and another 80 need rule changes the departments can make on their own. Together with the 75 that are done or underway, that accounts for 239 of the 344. Most of the roughly 100 others are listed as changes in how an office operates, such as a new online form or portal, and are still marked as proposed.

Two departments account for most of what is listed as already in place. Education has 30 of the 51, and the Inspector General’s office has all eight of its findings marked done. Most of those items are internal work rather than changes an applicant would see: guides, checklists, databases and legal research that the list says staff produced with a software platform called Justinian, which the state piloted from July 7 to Sept. 30. The list credits that platform with saving Education staff hundreds of hours, and says the Inspector General’s office used it to cut a search for unlicensed people billing Arkansas Medicaid from “several months to 14 minutes.”

At the other end, none of the 31 Human Services findings except one is listed as adopted. Most of them are proposals from a review of the department’s provider licensing office, which the list says has not adopted them yet and in some cases questions them. The review estimated, for example, that running health, fire marshal and licensing approvals at the same time could open a new long-term care facility 96 days sooner. The licensing office said that depends on other agencies.

Changes people will notice

Sales tax permits. Finance and Administration says a new sales tax permit now takes about 10 business days. The department is moving to electronic verification so most are approved within 24 hours, and it will notify applicants when a review takes longer.

Insurance agent licenses. Starting Nov. 12, the Arkansas Insurance Department, part of the Department of Commerce, will have new agents take their exam before applying instead of after. The state expects that to cut the average wait from about three weeks to about three days, and the list says later automation aims for one day or less.

Health licenses. The Department of Health built its own online application portal rather than buying one. The list says that avoided $5.57 million in first-year vendor costs and $973,000 a year in subscription fees. Applicants can apply, pay, track status and get renewal reminders online, and at least 11 more programs are expected to move onto it each year.

Septic and wastewater systems. Under an agreement that took effect Aug. 1, the Health and Energy and Environment departments now assign one lead agency to each type of domestic wastewater system. Before, applicants paid two sets of fees and went through two technical reviews. Health handles small systems and Energy and Environment handles larger ones, with one shared application.

Environmental permits. Since July 1, the Division of Environmental Quality sends one consolidated list of missing items within a set window, and closes an application if the applicant misses its own deadline, with an easy way to reopen it. In August the division dropped senior-management sign-off on routine coverage under general permits.

Revenue office trips. Car dealers will start sending sale and registration information straight to the state under Electronic Vehicle Registration, with a pilot this fall and completion set for Dec. 31. The list sets a March 31, 2028, target for letting drivers renew their licenses online two cycles in a row and get a REAL ID online after verification. The state’s new MyArkansas app, launched Oct. 8, is also on the list as one of the changes underway.

Alcohol and tobacco permits. Those applications are still paper only and paid by check or money order, the list says. Finance and Administration has bought a new system with online filing, payment and automatic tax clearance, set for September 2027, with email filing and published timelines by March 2027.

Early childhood programs. The Department of Education’s Natural Start screener walks a family through five steps to see whether it likely qualifies for Arkansas Better Chance, School Readiness Assistance, Head Start or Early Head Start, instead of applying to each one separately.

What could go to lawmakers

Sanders told agencies to make every change they can now and to work with the Legislature on the rest during the regular session, which opens Jan. 11. Among the proposals on the list that would need new laws or rules:

• Dropping the 90-day wait new Arkansas residents face before they can apply for a concealed carry license, while keeping the residency requirement, and setting a 30-day decision window for complete online applications. Applicants can now wait up to 120 days.
• Considering whether to cut the supervised hours required for a social work license from 4,000 to 3,000, the number the interstate compact requires.
• A uniform “shot clock” across Health Department licensing boards: 30 days to tell an applicant what is missing and 90 days to decide. The department found no rule requiring it or its boards to decide applications by any date.
• Deciding veterinary license eligibility in the office and offering the state exam online on demand, cutting the wait from 42 days to 21.
• Adopting the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s list of reportable animal diseases, which the Agriculture Department estimates would save animal owners and the industry about $220,000 a year.
• Making the $10 poultry feeding operation registration fee optional, which the list says would cost the state up to about $21,650 a year.
• Dropping filing fees, newspaper notices and comment periods for state-chartered banks opening branches, matching an amended FDIC rule. The list puts the savings at $16,360 a year.
• Ending the environment division’s Clandestine Lab Program, and the license that goes with it, because the Health Department already regulates that work.
• Two-year terms, instead of yearly renewals, for water well, soil classifier and other licenses, and biennial licenses for hospitals and health facilities.

Some of the findings are plain housekeeping. Education recommends that the state’s minute-of-silence requirement appear in state law once instead of twice. The Health Department wants to remove a telegram filing option from its radiation licensing rules, and athletic trainer rules still carry a 1969 grandfathering route.

Not every idea has cleared the administration. The Department of Labor and Licensing proposed an artificial intelligence tool that it said could process more than 1,000 boiler inspection reports in under two minutes and cut certificate waits from two or three weeks to three to five business days. The list says the proposal was denied and the boiler division’s director has asked for reconsideration.