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Middletown health department shifts licensing and payments to state Acela system; printing and payment delays expected
Summary
Environmental health staff told the board the department is migrating from HealthSpace to the state's Acela public-facing system (phase rollout) starting mid-May; the switch will temporarily prevent printing of licenses and delay online payment availability while the department completes testing.
Carla, the department's environmental health director, told the board the department will move to the state's Acela system for public-facing licensing and payments, with a planned go-live around May 16 for the public portal. She said Acela will permit online submissions and will connect to PayPal for payments, but the department will not be able to print licenses while the migration completes.
Why it matters: local food-service, pool and septic operators rely on the department for permits and inspections, and the migration will temporarily change how those businesses pay and receive licenses. Carla said the public-facing portal should allow customers to submit applications online; payments will initially require in-office or phone processing until full payments are enabled.
Carla described a full-day "smoke test" the department will run to test the new system before it goes live and warned of communication and integration issues across counties and the vendor. She said current HealthSpace functionality has been decommissioned and that staying with the current vendor would be costly. "If we were to stay with HealthSpace, it could cost us up to probably more than like $40,000," Carla said.
Board members asked about payment options; Carla explained the Acela portal will front-end PayPal so customers can pay by card through that service. Staff said they will upload existing documents into Acela once the migration finishes and will notify permit holders about changes to payment and licensing timelines.
No formal board action was taken; staff requested latitude to continue transition and testing and will report back on the go-live and any issues.
