Actually building that website to perform all the promised tasks? Not as easy.
But unlike the federal government, ridiculed after rolling out a flawed Obamacare signup site in 2013, Florida lawmakers are pulling the plug on a planned Web portal intended to allow new businesses to register with all required state agencies and departments.
"Our eyeballs were bigger than our tummies," said state Sen. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla, a supporter of what was to be called the Florida One-Stop Business Registration Portal. Funding for the project was unanimously authorized in 2012 by the House and Senate and signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott.
"It was a grand idea that turned out to be not feasible," Hays said.
Bob Swindell, president and CEO of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance, a public-private economic development organization, said this week that a statewide business registration portal "could be great," but not if the cost of upgrading various agencies' systems to make it work supersedes the efficiency the portal was intended to create.
The Legislature's intent was to encourage business development by creating a single portal where business owners could input their information once, including the type of business they were creating, and then have the website automatically direct them to appropriate state agencies with which they have to register to pay taxes, request licenses, file documents and secure permits.
Information they entered when first getting on the website would be pre-filled with required agencies such as the departments of revenue, health, business regulation, environmental protection, management services, highway safety and motor vehicles, lottery and insurance regulation, and the Agency for Health Care Administration. Lawmakers also wanted the site to one day integrate permitting and registration functions of local counties and cities.
But after three years and $2.7 million spent with three technology firms and a third-party consultant, lawmakers concluded that the computer systems operated by the various state agencies could not be easily integrated to make the system work as planned. An October 2014 report by the third-party consultant, Gartner Inc., said the state had a strong concept but "may have been overzealous to implement, thus bypassing critical strategic planning steps."
Gartner's report said the state can deliver "increased value" to customers for the anticipated cost of $7 million to $10 million, but building a site with the desired functions have cost other organizations "upwards of $50 million and have taken as much as six years to complete."
Instead of that commitment, the state decided to salvage what it could by creating a website that would tell businesses where they need to go.
A bill pending the upcoming special session that begins June 1 would eliminate the trust fund set up to collect licensing and registration fees through the abandoned portal.
The bill also would authorize $1.5 million to create a "One-Stop Business Information Portal," operated by the Department of Business and Professional Regulation. After new business owners go to the site and enter their information, the information site would "give you a printout with information about the [various state] agencies," Sen. Hayes said.
"We wanted a Cadillac and had to settle for a Chevrolet instead," Hays said.
Swindell, of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance, said the state should instead "invest some money to try to market" a statewide one-stop information portal that already exists: the Florida Virtual Entrepreneur Center, developed by the Florida High Tech Corridor Council.
The site includes links to business and career development organizations in all 67 Florida counties, plus advice for people starting, expanding or relocating a business. Information topics include developing a business plan, legal and tax issues, regulatory laws, licensing and permitting, and how to secure capital.
"I'd much rather see the state say there's a public-private partnership that's already done this," Swindell said. "The state would be a great partner in promoting that it's out there and it would end up being much less expensive for them."
©2015 the Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
