Generally speaking, the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation is not the most sensational component of state government.
However, paying attention to IDFPR can be quite instructive in terms of what’s happening in a community and understanding the ways in which Springfield attempts (and sometimes fails) to operate.
Every month, the agency posts an enforcement report listing actions from the previous month. The April report was posted May 20. Scattered among the 147 people across several licensed professions facing suspension for failure to file or pay state income taxes are those facing similar penalties for failing to report criminal convictions or pay child support.
Those line items both let folks know why a local barber or funeral director might be sidelined, but more broadly illuminate the regulatory structure wherein the right to do business is tied to compliance with other laws not directly related to a given profession.
It takes a little digging to find things like punishing holders of medical licenses for inappropriate prescription of controlled substances or losing out on a recreational cannabis license renewal for selling to a minor. However, taken as a whole, the 24-page document depicts an agency active in all corners of Illinois, ostensibly protecting consumers by ensuring people who charge for work do so by meeting certain standards.
Who sets the standards? Ultimately, the General Assembly, though clearly with input from experts. That brings us to House Bill 3356, a (for now) failed attempt to deregulate one industry by striking requirements from the 1985 Barber, Cosmetology, Esthetics, Hair Braiding and Nail Technology Act.
The Medill Illinois News Bureau, partnering with Capitol News Illinois, detailed the situation as the spring session concluded. The effort stemmed from an ongoing attempt to minimize barriers to employment, in this case, forcing hair braiding training on people with privately developed skills, but ran headlong into opposition from professionals who endorsed the 2011 rule and feel their continued compliance validates their skill and recognition.
Those developments come in the larger context of a Tuesday IDFPR release touting the addition of 21 professions to the new online licensing system, another indicator of marginal progress in the (way too long) slog of modernizing administration. That debacle is familiar to regular readers, but surfaces here to reinforce the larger point that, including outside this agency, the state has an unfortunate reputation for giving itself responsibilities it can’t execute.
Taken altogether, IDFPR represents a challenging balancing act common across government: protecting the average Illinoisan without throttling the economy and attempting to do so while properly leveraging public resources (don’t spend too much or too little), all of it perpetually a work in progress with success or failure a matter of personal perception.
• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.
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