Secretary of State licensing system overhaul cuts average processing from months to weeks, officials say

The Professional Licensing Division (PLB) of the Georgia Secretary of State's office told the General Government Appropriations Committee that a newly deployed online licensing platform has dramatically shortened application processing times and increased productivity.

Todd Zandowicz, director of licensing, said the GOAL system is now fully live and that the division supports roughly 220 license categories across 42 boards, representing about 564,000 license records and 413,000 unique constituents. "Since 2018, new licenses issued have increased 67% and our total applications received has increased 109%," Zandowicz said, arguing that the digital system moves the agency from a paper workflow to an applicant-centered process.

Zandowicz told legislators the change in throughput has been substantial: "Our average processing days was 133 business days in our old system. We have that down to about 18 business days in our new system." He said analyst productivity rose from roughly 900 applications per analyst in 2020 to about 1,250 this year, and that the agency relocated from about 83,000 square feet to roughly 9,000 square feet to realize cost savings.

The director acknowledged remaining problems and exceptions. He said certain boards—particularly the newly added behavior analyst board—saw an initial surge of first‑time applicants and that reciprocity cases (licensees already licensed in other states) still require transcripts and practicum verifications that delay processing. He also noted that background-check and fingerprint requirements for some license types impose additional steps that employers sometimes prefer to manage.

Zandowicz previewed automation improvements intended to reduce manual review, including a planned AI document reader that will scan uploaded documents and flag missing signatures, expirations, bond amounts and notarial requirements. "That kind of tool will give a green check mark on the back end for the analyst to say it's already been reviewed," he said.

The PLB is also launching an "application journey" tracker to let applicants see submission date, current status (for example, "pending validation"), estimated completion dates based on average processing times, and whether action is required from the applicant or the PLB. Zandowicz said the tracker aims to reduce call-center volume by making status transparent to applicants.

Committee members pressed whether faster processing would mean job reductions. Zandowicz said, "We're not going to—we have no plans to reduce headcount. This is processing; it's not a reduction." He added that temporary staff (about 18 people) have been used during the transition.

Lawmakers and the floor leader raised constituent complaints about fraudulent corporate renewals and asked whether the corporations renewal process could adopt stronger authentication, such as two‑factor authentication or password protection, to prevent misuse. Zandowicz said he would pass that feedback to the corporations team and suggested chief-of-staff Liz Hossman and Deputy Secretary Matt Tizer as follow-up contacts for constituents.

On service-level issues, Zandowicz said corporate and elections phone queues are cleared daily, while GOAL-related surges—driven by a large nursing renewal addition—have produced longer callbacks. "We're at about two days right now calling people back," he said, and the division is working to reduce that backlog.

The PLB briefing closed with a call from members to continue attention to reciprocity, background-check requirements and fraud protections in corporate renewals. The committee did not take formal action on the presentation.

Next procedural steps: staff agreed to provide follow-up on corporations-team authentication options and to supply fact sheets on technical cabling and other facility changes referenced during the briefing.