Arizona Department of Agriculture - Licensing Functions

This report focuses on the need to centralize the Department’s various licensing functions to improve efficiency, customer service, and management oversight of the licensing process. Currently, the Department maintains 12 separate licensing functions to issue its over 70 different types of licenses, permits, and certificates. This decentralized approach to licensing has led to a number of inefficiencies and weaknesses, including duplication of effort, greater financial risk for the State, and a diminished ability to provide good customer service. This report recommends that the Department centralize its licensing functions to improve customer service and management oversight, and eliminate processing redundancies. Additionally, to prepare for a centralized licensing function, the Department should explore the feasibility of developing and implementing a single licensing database to store and track all licensing data, develop comprehensive policies and procedures, and train its licensing staff on these policies and procedures.