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OPLC outlines self-funded licensing operations, enforcement work and ARPA-funded NextGen licensing system
Summary
The Office of Professional Licensure and Certification told the committee it administers about 57 licensing boards and roughly 212,000 licensees, handles roughly 100 complaints a month and is deploying a new ARPA-funded licensing platform intended to modernize licensing and, eventually, enforcement workflows.
Executive director Deanna Juris told Finance – Division I members that the Office of Professional Licensure and Certification (OPLC) oversees more than 50 licensing boards and roughly 200,000 licensees and operates largely from dedicated licensing funds rather than from the general fund.
Roles and scale
Juris said the office administers about 57 independent regulatory boards and 7 advisory boards. OPLC processes thousands of applications and renewals and conducts approximately 2,000 inspections annually; the enforcement unit reviews roughly 100 complaints per month. "If the law says it, we do it. If it doesn't, we don't," Juris said, summarizing the office's authority-based approach.
Rulemaking backlog and statutory changes
OPLC staff described an active rulemaking workload: the office filed roughly 27 percent of initial rule proposals listed in the state register in 2024. Juris said recent statutory changes (the transcript referenced HB 655 and other reorganization bills) increased the rulemaking burden. OPLC also cited statutory requirements to adopt military-service-credit rules for licensing (RSA 310 references) and described a time lag in updating board rules after legislative changes.
NextGen licensing system and ARPA funding
Juris and Heather Kelly, director of operations, updated the committee on an ARPA-financed NextGen licensing platform (a Microsoft cloud-based system) budgeted at about $6.7 million. Kelly said the Department of Information Technology holds the ARPA appropriation while OPLC manages the project: the first boards were launched and the agency plans to add more boards incrementally to achieve systemwide modernization and to reduce manual processing. Juris said the agency is planning an initial mandatory go-live date for the first board and that subsequent boards will be added after testing.
Funding model and positions
OPLC officials told members the office has not received regular general-fund support in recent years and operates from a dedicated licensing fund established to allow up to $3 million to roll year to year. The agency also reported creating 11 permanent positions in a recent cycle, adding six positions in the last biennium, and proposed changing eight temporary positions to permanent in the upcoming budget; several vacant positions remain. Juris said staffing changes largely reflect statutory mandates that placed additional responsibilities with OPLC, including in-house hearings and enforcement that previously sat with the attorney general's office.
Ending
Juris told the committee OPLC is focused on completing data cleanup in enforcement records, finishing the NextGen rollout and ensuring board rules catch up with statutory changes; she asked for legislative patience while the office finishes those transitions.
