Youngkin chases after government efficiency with latest executive order

Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued his thirty-ninth executive order, requiring state agencies to improve their permitting and approvals processes and continue quarterly reporting on their progress.

Executive Order 39, issued Friday, attempts to build on some agencies' momentum in improving their permitting and regulatory practices.

Throughout his governorship, Youngkin has repeatedly called for reducing government regulation and streamlining its systems and procedures through executive directives and orders. His first executive directive was for “laying a strong foundation for job creation and economic growth through targeted regulatory reduction.”

Through Executive Order 5, he established an office of Commonwealth Chief Transformation Officer for identifying and directing government reforms where necessary.

The commonwealth’s CTO started by reviewing Virginia’s Department of Motor Vehicles and the Virginia Employment Commission. In this latest executive order, Youngkin cited key advancements at both institutions.

“At the Department of Motor Vehicle service centers, customer wait times were cut by more than 70% for the 3.5 million Virginians who annually frequent DMV from 37 to 10 minutes,” Youngkin wrote.

The Virginia Employment Commission eliminated “over 1.3 million unemployment work items.” It went from being at the bottom of U.S. Department of Labor rankings to “top 20 in two key metrics (first pay timeliness and timeliness payments),” according to Youngkin.

The governor also directed the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality in 2022 to “pilot an innovative system for tracking its permits,” which has led to a “first-in-the-nation” online approval tracking system where Virginia residents and businesses can now track their applications in real-time with at least six state agencies. DEQ has reduced its permit processing time by 70%.

“Because of these efforts and the importance of improving Virginians’ experience with their state government, I also requested an inventory of all approval types across agencies, including annual volume of issued approvals and average processing times,” Youngkin wrote.

“The results of this effort highlighted the opportunity for further action,” the governor commented, prompting Executive Order 39.

In the order, Youngkin requests six pieces of additional data from relevant agencies on the approvals they issue, directs them to devise ways—including potential digitization—of enhancing their approval-issuing process and submit their improvement plans by mid-December, and requires agencies to “report on their achievements” by Jan. 31 and quarterly thereafter.