Regulations regarding Y2K and women in the workforce are just some of the outdated rules being cleared from the state’s books as part of a new effort from the governor’s office.
Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the Express NY initiative earlier this year. The latest round of regulatory changes streamlines some rules and regulations regarding childcare, nursing homes and affordable housing.
Previous attempts to update or cleanse the state code and its hundreds of directives haven’t gotten very far. This latest attempt draws on input from state agencies and the public, while also using AI to do a comprehensive scan of the 18 million words of regulatory and statutory text. The result is a developing list of rules that are outdated; boards that no longer exist; fees or mandatory reporting that no longer make sense.
“We heard a lot about paperwork,” said Zoe Jacobs, director of regulatory reform and delivery with the governor’s office. And a lot about regulations that are requiring people to be spending an inordinate amount of time on reporting and paperwork.”
The code-clearing process requires working closely with experts in and outside of state government to ensure what’s removed is safeguarding health and safety or otherwise essential in some way, Jacobs said.
The latest 75 revisions include removing the requirement for a new background check and medical certificate once a worker changes sites or substitutes elsewhere, while maintaining requirements for new providers and a background check for workers once every five years. It also expands the number of eligible fields of study for would-be childcare providers, to help grow the potential talent pool.
In other instances, the effort is removing regulations regarding the Y2K scare and outdated workforce regulations, including one that required restaurants to obtain a permit so waitresses could work past midnight. Even though that one and others are no longer being enforced, their presence in the state code can still cause confusion, according to Jacobs.
“I think a lot of people still look at our state code and regulations when they're trying to understand what they need to do and what is required of them, and so having really outdated regulations from the 1950s still on our books is really confusing for business owners, (and for) lawyers that are trying to give them advice,” she said.
Other states are also launching some efforts to streamline regulations and red tape, but few are as extensive at the moment as New York, according to Wayne Crews with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a think tank promoting regulatory reform.
“I'm happy to see this coming from New York,” Crews said. “What this tells us is that the idea of cutting red tape is something that … on a bipartisan basis, governors across the country are supportive of.”
And, he continued: “I hope we can take it as the start of things and not the end of things.”
Jacobs' team has also been examining permitting and soon plans to announce reforms aimed at speeding up the permit process for housing and infrastructure.
