SPRINGFIELD — The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation updated lawmakers Wednesday on its new online licensing system to streamline the process and eliminate backlogs.
Rep. Bob Morgan, D-Deerfield, called for the subject matter hearing in the House Health Care Licensing Committee to discuss the progress IDFPR has made on the system so far, as well as their timeline to implement all license applications online.
“I’ve been around state government for over 15 years now, and I really am hard pressed to think of a turnaround like this,” Morgan said.
One of IDFPR’s main roles as a state agency is to regulate and handle all business licenses in Illinois.
However, the department has struggled to keep up with the influx in both initial licensing and renewals since 2019, as applications were almost entirely submitted on paper via mail. In 2020, the problem was compounded as the COVID-19 pandemic affected the country’s mailing systems.
By late 2023, IDFPR Director Mario Treto, Jr. said applicants were experiencing “historic wait times” and officially called the situation a “crisis.”
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In December 2023, Illinois lawmakers passed legislation that enabled the department to create an online licensing application process. And in October 2024, IDFPR officially launched its online licensing system — the Comprehensive Online Regulatory Environment, or CORE.
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The initial system rollout in October only included three licensing types: clinical psychologists, music therapists and nail technicians.
During his testimony in the committee meeting Wednesday, Treto said the department has outlined six specific phases in order to fully implement a complete, comprehensive online licensing system. The CORE startup in October completed Phase 1.
Phases 2 and 3 include the continuous rollout of the rest of the license types, which Treto said will come in rollouts of small numbers of license types until all types have been launched online.
In January, the department kicked off both phases when it launched online applications for four more license types: professional midwifes, behavioral analysts, assistant behavior analysts, and behavior analysts continuing education sponsors.
“Rather than waiting to roll out 15 applications all together in one big batch, the department, understanding that our licensed professionals are eager to begin using CORE, has added applications to the system as soon as they are available,” Treto said.
Camile Lindsay, director of IDFPR’s division of professional regulation, said the department hopes to rollout all license types by the end of this summer. This would complete both Phases 2 and 3.
However, Lindsay said the current phases aren’t simply about getting new license types online. After new license types are rolled out, her team will be analyzing the efficiency of those application process. What they learn from those analysis will be applied to the wave of license types they roll out, and the same process will be applied until all the license types are online.
“I expect not only will your constituents be happy because they are able to use this new and improved system, but they will see differences in even the way that we are requesting information,” Lindsay said. “The way that they are able to keep track of what the status is of their applications, how they submit money, etc. I just think that your constituents will be very pleased.”
Although she said the system has more to implement and processes to improve, Lindsay praised the actions taken to get the system where it currently stands.
“Our customer surveys satisfaction results are in the 98% and the record breaking 120,933 licenses were issued in 2024,” Lindsay said. “That is an almost 14% increase from the previous record set in 2023.”
The majority of applications the department is currently processing were submitted this year, which is what Lindsay called “a far cry from two years ago.”
She boasted that her team’s process of constantly improving the implementation of license types is contributing to the decline of inquiries from applicants needing assistance. From September 2024 to February 2025, IDFPR experienced a 33% decrease in inquiries, and their call center volume decreased almost 40%.
“It is clear that IDFPR is issuing more licenses to qualified applicants, improving customer service, and implementing a variety of thoughtful improvements to our processes and procedures to ensure licensing is convenient for applicants and efficient for the department,” Lindsay said,
Treto said that IDFPR’s goal is to implement the last phase of CORE’s online integration, or Phase 6, by August 2026.
Morgan admitted that when Illinois lawmakers passed the legislation for IDFPR to create CORE 2023, he wasn’t “totally sure” that the agency would be able to implement the online system and fix their growing application backup. He praised not only Treto and Lindsay’s work, but the work of all IDFPR staff on the issue.
“It’s a little surreal, because to me, this is exactly the kind of progress that we would want to see,” he said. “You both said that we have more work to do. There are more licenses by the month that you will be having, but I think it’s safe to say you are absolutely moving in the right direction, and I want to thank you for that.”
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