- The Occupational Licensing Review Commission and the Secretary of State’s Tackle the Tape initiative want to make it easier for Mississippians – current and new – to get to work.
For dozens of professions in the state of Mississippi an occupational license must be obtained from the respective oversight board within that field. At times, meeting all of the regulations to receive that license can be expensive and burdensome.
Since each state has its own licensing board, the regulations are not universal across the U.S. That fact can make it difficult for established professionals in other states to move to Mississippi.
In an effort to cut that red tape for Mississippians while also attracting professionals from out-of-state, the Magnolia State’s Legislature established an Occupational Licensing Review Commission (OLRC) in 2017. The goal was to ensure new regulations are not overly restrictive.
In 2020, the purview of that commission was expanded to allow its members – the Secretary of State, Governor and Attorney General – to review previously established regulations.
“Men and women who want to work should not be locked out of their dreams by red tape and Attorney General Lynn Fitch is pleased to help them connect with the employment opportunities that help them achieve those dreams,” said MaryAsa Lee, Communications Director for the Office of the Attorney General.
In addition to Fitch’s work on the OLRC, Lee added that attorneys with the AG’s office collaborate with boards, agencies and commissions to help streamline rules.
Tackle the Tape
Secretary of State Michael Watson’s office also initiated the Tackle the Tape effort in 2020 to make doing business in the state easier.
“Through promotion of licensing reciprocity, elimination of overly restrictive regulations, or those which are anti-competitive, among others, Tackle the Tape has made it easier for individuals to obtain or renew professional licensure and has resulted in new businesses and jobs developing across Mississippi,” Watson stated in a column published by the SOS last month.
The goal is to review every one of the state’s more than 118,000 regulations by 2029.
According to the Tackle the Tape initiative, those licensing regulations have resulted in the loss of about “13,000 job-creating opportunities” annually.
Colby Williams, Assistant Secretary of State for Policy and Research, told Magnolia Tribune that since 2020, the OLRC’s members have taken a proactive approach to reduce the anticompetitive nature of licensing regulations through their 15 meetings held to date.
“We’ve cast, as a Commission, 124 votes on proposed regulation cuts and rule changes in that time,” Williams described.
Of those 124 votes cast in the past four years, Williams said each one could have dealt with a single regulation or focused on 40 pages of regulatory changes, so an exact number of the changes made is hard to pin down. Each change by the commission is carefully considered, he said.
“Secretary Watson has made it clear that it’s not a rubber stamp. Every proposal we read line by line and have reviews and feedback and vote accordingly,” Williams added.
Occupational Boards
Within Mississippi there are now 28 boards that oversee 65 different occupations, ranging from the medical fields of nursing, dentistry and pharmacists to barbers, cosmetologists, contractors and geologists. Williams said there were 29 boards, but the barbering and cosmetology boards were combined this year.
Grant Callen, founder and CEO of Empower Mississippi, said the work of the OLRC is essential in cutting though the many barriers that may dissuade a person from seeking a certain profession due to the time and cost required.
“Mississippi requires a lot of professions to have an occupational license, and then the challenges or the requirements that it takes in terms of hours or money to get those licenses are often really exorbitant and it often prices out people who are just starting out or low income,” Callen described. “The work that the OLRC does is important because they’re trying to scale that back so more people can experience the life changing power of meaningful work.”
Now that changes are underway, it is becoming easier for licensees from other states to move to Mississippi, the Secretary of State’s office contends.
“We get numerous calls weekly or daily, often from licensees wanting to move to Mississippi but they’re having issues with the licensing board, or they’re already licensed in Mississippi, and they are having issues,” Williams elaborated. “We’ve been able to help dozens of those licensees move to Mississippi and get licensed through the very actions of the OLRC.”
Notable changes have led to reduced licensing fees or helped move telehealth provisions further along, Williams noted.
Attorneys at the AG’s office assisted the Licensed Professional Counselors Board in establishing less restrictive regulations to make the market more competitive, Lee stated.
Oversight is Necessary but Doesn’t Have to be Overly Burdensome
Even though the aim of the Commission is to ensure regulations are not overly burdensome, oversight of a profession is necessary. Williams said the aim is simply to cut as much red tape as possible.
“Tying back to the original point of the OLRC, we don’t think all regulations are bad. There are good regulations that are intended to uphold public safety and public welfare,” Williams said. “It’s when you start getting into regulations where you can question, ‘Is this a public safety benefit?’ those are the industries where we see the most overly burdensome regulations.”
Some regulations, especially those pertaining to the health industry in nursing, dentistry and pharmacy are federally mandated, and therefore more difficult to reform or change.
“A lot of our licensing boards aren’t doing it intentionally but having a third-party commission review these regulations for that anticompetitive nature generally helps back off on some of this restrictive nature that is hurting economic growth and development in the state,” Williams added.
According to the resolution from the March 29, 2024 meeting, five changes were made by the OLRC, four of which concerned the Board of Nursing. Two notable changes to nursing involved removing unnecessary fees “for adding collaborating physicians and clinical sites” and adding “office screening for APRN’s prescribing benzos and opioids and to amend cannabis certification rules to align with new statutory requirements.” The fifth dealt with the Mississippi Auctioneer Commission, which created a requirement for background checks.
