Productive Partnerships

Over the last 60 years, the number of jobs requiring an occupational license, or government approval to practice a profession, has grown from about one in 20 to nearly one in four. When implemented properly, occupational licensing can help protect the health and safety of consumers by requiring practitioners to undergo a designated amount of training and education in their field. However, differences and disparities in occupational licensing laws across states can create barriers for those looking to enter the labor market and make it harder for workers to relocate across state lines.

Certain populations — including military spouses and families, immigrants with work authorization, people with criminal records and unemployed and dislocated workers — are especially affected by the requirements and variances of occupational licensing.

States have prioritized license portability for military spouses by enacting legislation to streamline or expedite licensure, but barriers to true reciprocity still exist. To address these challenges, states and professions have turned to occupational licensure interstate compacts. These compacts create reciprocal professional licensing practices between states while ensuring the quality and safety of services and safeguarding state sovereignty. To date, more than 40 states and territories have adopted occupational licensure compacts for nurses, physicians, physical therapists, emergency medical technicians, psychologists and speech therapists/audiologists.

U.S. Department of Defense to support development of new interstate compacts for occupational licensure. Through this cooperative agreement, CSG, with support from Department of Defense, will assist in developing interstate occupational licensure compacts that address multistate professional licensing issues impacting transitioning military spouses and professionals in state-licensed occupations.

“Across America, states recognize the need to streamline license protocols for military spouses,” said Dan Logsdon, director of the CSG National Center for Interstate Compacts. “CSG, with the support of the U.S. Department of Defense, will build lasting solutions to the problems caused by the variances in state licensing processes that will bring substantial benefit to the military community and practitioners at large.”

This project is in response to the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, which states:

“[T]he Secretary of Defense shall seek to enter into a cooperative agreement with the Council of State Governments to assist with the funding of the development of interstate compacts on licensed occupations in order to alleviate the burden associated with relicensing in such an occupation by spouse of members of the armed forces in connection with a permanent change of duty station of members to another State.”

Through state enactment of new interstate compacts, CSG aims to help remove barriers that exist for military spouses and general practitioners in the current state regulatory structure.

CSG, in partnership with the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) and the National Governors Association (NGA) Center for Best Practices, recently released the final report from the partner organizations’ multi-year, U.S. Department of Labor-funded project titled, “Occupational Licensing: Assessing State Policy and Practice.”

The purpose of the project is to assist states in assessing occupational licensing policies and identifying best practices to improve labor market entry and portability for occupational license holders. The partner organizations provided targeted technical assistance to states that applied to be part of the project’s Occupational Licensing Policy Learning Consortium, convened state policymakers to review progress and provide learning opportunities and authored supporting policy resources.

The 16 Consortium states — Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Utah and Vermont — organized teams of state leaders who attended convenings facilitated by CSG, NCSL and NGA.

One of the foundational resources of the project is the development of a National Occupational Licensing Database to assist states in assessing licensure policies. The Database contains 30,000 datapoints on 48 occupations from all 50 states, including information on education requirements, the cost of applications and exams, “good moral character” clauses and licensing board information. CSG, NCSL and NGA also produced supporting resources outlining historical and current trends in occupational licensing regulation, analyses of occupational licensing responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and a series of reports on four population groups who are disproportionately affected by occupational licensing laws: veterans and military spouses, individuals with a criminal record, foreign-trained workers and low-income and dislocated workers.

“The Consortium has been a tremendous resource for Connecticut in our continued effort to address occupational licensing barriers and develop new solutions to strengthen [our] workforce,” said Connecticut Department of Labor Commissioner Kurt Westby.

This report’s findings provide other states a blueprint on how advances in occupational licensing policy can further state efforts to support military families, reintegrate individuals with criminal records, strengthen state workforces and reduce the economic effects of regulation.

In addition to the benefits afforded to state workforces, the report found the project itself helped Consortium states accomplish more in partnership than they could on their own. Consortium states enacted occupational licensing bills almost 20% more often than other states, and they led a nation-wide bipartisan trend in occupational licensure reform.

Since 2017, states have prioritized policies that improve licensure mobility to benefit those disproportionately affected by regulation. Across the 50 states:

• 73 pieces of legislation were enacted affecting individuals with criminal records

• 51 bills were passed affecting veterans and military spouses

• 17 policies were adopted through legislation affecting immigrants • 42 states joined at least one interstate licensing compact and 106 individual pieces of licensing compact legislation have been passed.

The work of the Consortium demonstrates that effective partnerships among states, the federal government and partner organizations are effective in developing solutions to employment barriers and the challenges of an increasingly mobile, and increasingly remote, workforce.

To view this report and other resources, visit licensing.csg.org. with work authorization

Occupational licensure is a type of interstate compact — a contract or agreement between states to work collaboratively when addressing problems that span state boundaries.

“Compacts are voluntary agreements between states,” said Jeff Litwak, general counsel for the Columbia River Gorge Commission and a founding member of the National Center for Interstate Compacts. “States are choosing to give up a slice of their sovereignty to one another in order to help each other retain that sovereignty of an issue at the state level.”

The benefits of interstate compacts include:

•Streamlined relicensing process between member states of the compact for all practitioners in the occupation

•Support for military spouses of relocating active duty military personnel through provisions recognizing unique requirements of military life

•Creation of streamlined pathways for interstate practice

•Increased public access to care or services

•Enhanced ability for member states to protect the public’s health and safety

•Increased cooperation of compact member states in regulating multistate practice

•Enhanced exchange of licensure, investigative and disciplinary information

Access the occupational licensure database at licensing.csg.org/ the-database. Learn more about interstate compacts and the National Center for Interstate Compacts at compacts.csg.org.

While occupational licensing regulations provide certain public health and safety safeguards, the increased health care demands imposed by COVID-19 have compelled states to evaluate which regulations may impede response efforts.

In response, states have implemented executive orders/proclamations, legislation and administrative rulings that temporarily amend certain regulations to increase the supply of health care workers, lessen administrative burdens and comply with social distancing measures.

While many of these actions were made during the onset of the COVID-19 state of emergency and exist only temporarily, states may consider additional policy actions that may be needed in the event of subsequent increases in COVID-19 cases and future health emergencies.

Through this health crisis, CSG compiled a collection of state actions, categorized by policy themes and types, to assist states with developing response plans.

Learn more at licensing.csg.org/covid-policy-responses