Automation of Renewal Notices and Environmental Operating Permits

About the Program

Category: County Resiliency (Best in Category)

Year: 2017

The Department of Regulatory and Economic Resources, Environmental Permitting Section renews approximately 20,000 operating permits on an annual basis. Since the time of the inception of environmental operating permits in the Department, the process of sending renewal notices, receiving payments, and issuing the renewed operating permit was mostly a manual process that consumed extensive labor hours from the professional and administrative resources of the section, but also paralyzed the section for days at a time to complete the task. As such, management enlisted the help of the County’s Information Technology Division (ITD) and the Internal Services Department (ISD) for a solution to the problem by automating the renewal process. The process improvement activities were completed and resulted in an automated approach to solve the problem which not only saved the Department time and money, but streamlined the renewal process, and maximized the County’s resources to provide citizens better overall service.