The person applying for a professional license doesn’t see your agency’s workflow. They see a website. They see a form. They see whether the process respects their time, accommodates their language and works on the device in their pocket. When it does, trust in your regulatory agency grows. When it doesn’t, they call your office frustrated and every manual interaction your agency handles costs time your staff cannot spare.
NASCIO ranks “Digital Government and Digital Services” fifth on its 2026 State CIO Top Ten Priorities list, which drew responses from 51 state and territory CIOs. That ranking captures something state regulatory agencies already feel every day. Public expectations have shifted. A survey found that 55% of Americans prefer to interact with state agencies online, yet only about one in four regularly does so. The gap exists largely because government digital services too often remain hard to navigate, inaccessible or simply unavailable when people need them most.
This article continues a 10-part series on NASCIO’s 2026 priorities for state regulatory agencies. Each installment examines how pairing advanced technology with disciplined operations helps agencies meet rising expectations with the staff and budgets they actually have.
NASCIO defines the priority broadly: a framework for digital services, portals, accessibility, identity management, privacy, security and cross-agency collaboration.
Regulatory agencies don’t treat those elements as abstract aspirations. Those elements define exactly what your agency delivers when a licensee submits an application at 9 p.m. on a Sunday, when a non-English speaker needs to renew a credential or when an inspector needs to complete a field form without a paper packet.
Pew Research Center’s 2025 survey found that 91% of Americans own a smartphone and nine in 10 use the internet daily, with 41% reporting they go online almost constantly. The population your agency serves already lives in a digital environment daily. That constant connectivity creates a clear choice for regulatory agencies: build a digital infrastructure with self-service or absorb it as phone calls and manual processing.
The public brings their expectations from banking, retail and healthcare into interactions with government. They expect to complete transactions quickly, with clear navigation and mobile accessibility.
Digital government is not a single project. It demands a sustained commitment to the idea that every person your agency serves deserves a service experience that actually works for them.
No element of digital government generates more urgent conversation in 2026 than accessibility. The Department of Justice finalized a rule in 2024 requiring state and local government websites and mobile applications to meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA standards under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. One week before the original compliance deadline in April 2026, DOJ issued an Interim Final Rule extending the deadline by one year.
Under the revised timeline, state and local governments serving populations of 50,000 or more must comply by April 26, 2027. Jurisdictions with smaller populations have until April 26, 2028. The extension recognizes the genuine complexity agencies face in bringing all digital properties into conformance, but it does not suspend the underlying legal obligation. The ADA and Section 508 already require accessible digital services regardless of any specific deadline.
For state regulatory agencies, this matters in practical terms. Barriers to digital access fall hardest on the populations your agency most needs to reach: people with visual or motor disabilities, individuals on assistive technology and applicants who navigate government services through a screen reader. When your portal fails those users, they do not quietly give up. They call your office or simply cannot complete the process at all.
The back-office and configurable web portions of the GL Suite application remains fully compliant, meeting WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards.
A business owner checking application status needs a direct answer online, not a phone call to your office. A well-built public portal delivers both automatically, around the clock, without staff involvement.
The most effective portals let users manage profiles, submit and renew applications, upload documents, track statuses and communicate directly with agency staff, entirely online from any device. They support multi-factor authentication and single sign-on, reducing password friction while protecting sensitive data. They integrate with standard identity protocols so access stays simple for licensees and secure for the agency.
The operational benefit of a 24/7 portal compounds quickly. When self-service handles routine transactions, inbound call volume drops. Staff who previously spent hours fielding status inquiries redirect that time toward substantive regulatory work. For regulatory agencies carrying open positions and flat budgets, that recovered capacity matters more than almost any other efficiency gain. GL Suite’s self-service portal delivers this kind of around-the-clock public access, built to meet the identity management and security standards NASCIO identifies as central to any digital government framework.
Language access defines whether a digital portal actually serves the full public or just part of it. Licensing agencies that communicate only in English exclude constituents who speak other languages from the self-service channels designed to reduce staff workload.
Translation tools reduce incomplete applications, cut back-and-forth communication and remove a compliance risk that grows more significant as agencies serve increasingly diverse populations.
GL Suite includes a translation feature that builds a regulatory framework where clear communication with every licensee produces better public outcomes.
Digital government fails when it forces people to adapt to government’s preferred tools and schedules. The stronger approach builds services around where residents and field staff already work.
Electronic signatures let applicants execute documents remotely and allow inspectors to capture signatures onsite, eliminating the need to print, mail and manually track paperwork.
Mobile forms take that same logic into the field, letting inspectors complete work on any device with GPS-enabled data that flows directly into the agency’s system of record. Supervisors gain real-time visibility into field activity without waiting for staff to return to the office.
GL Suite supports both capabilities through its DocuSign integration and mobile forms, giving agencies the practical tools to deliver services where the work actually happens rather than where a desktop computer happens to sit.
Digital services create value only when people trust them. NASCIO names security and privacy as core components of any digital government framework, and for good reason. An accessible portal that exposes sensitive licensee data destroys more trust than no portal at all.
State agencies face growing pressure from legislators, auditors and the public to prove that digital services protect the data they collect. Meeting that pressure requires more than a privacy policy. It requires encrypted communications between users and servers, multi-factor authentication on every login, and single sign-on that reduces password sprawl without reducing protection. It requires a cloud environment that meets federal security standards and submits to rigorous third-party audit rather than self-attestation.
Those requirements point toward a clear procurement principle: choose a cloud-based platform that demonstrates strong security compliance rather than simply claim it. GL Suite runs on Microsoft Azure (a FedRAMP-certified environment) and holds GovRAMP Ready Status, earned through independent audit. Agencies that build their digital government infrastructure on that kind of verified foundation give the public, legislators and auditors the assurance they need to trust government digital services.
The public experiences government as one entity, not a collection of separate agencies. An individual licensed by multiple boards expects their information to follow them across those interactions without redundant submissions. Someone completing a transaction with one state program expects the same quality of digital experience when they interact with another. When licensing agencies operate on disconnected systems, that expectation goes unmet and residents absorb the friction.
Cross-agency collaboration solves that problem at the infrastructure level. When agencies share a common platform, they share data security protocols, accessibility standards and portal architecture.
The investment in compliant digital government compounds across every participating agency rather than duplicating across each one. Statewide agreements accelerate that approach further, giving agencies a pre-negotiated path to modern platforms without redundant procurement cycles.
Oklahoma’s Office of Management and Enterprise Services took exactly that step, establishing a statewide agreement that gives any Oklahoma agency access to GL Suite’s unified licensing infrastructure.
The strongest digital government frameworks treat collaboration as a design principle, not an afterthought. Agencies that build on shared, interoperable platforms serve the public as one government rather than many.
What does NASCIO mean when it ranks Digital Government as a top priority for 2026? NASCIO calls for state agencies to build comprehensive digital service frameworks that include accessible public portals, strong identity management, privacy protections and cross-agency collaboration. For regulatory agencies, this translates directly into how licensing, permitting and case management systems serve the public.
How does the DOJ accessibility deadline extension affect regulatory agencies? Agencies serving populations of 50,000 or more now face an April 26, 2027, deadline for WCAG 2.1 Level AA compliance. The extension does not eliminate the obligation. Existing ADA and Section 508 requirements remain in effect. Agencies should treat the extra year as time to complete compliance work, not delay it.
Does GL Suite meet current federal accessibility standards? Yes. GL Suite meets WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards. Agencies using GL Suite operate a compliant digital environment without requiring a separate remediation effort before the 2027 deadline.
What GL Suite features support a digital government strategy? GL Suite delivers a 24/7 self-service portal, a translation feature for language access, DocuSign integration for electronic signatures, mobile forms for field operations, GovRAMP Ready Status for a secure cloud environment, AI chatbot capabilities and enterprise-wide single sign-on. Each feature addresses a specific component of the NASCIO digital government framework.
How does language access connect to digital government compliance? Federal civil rights law requires agencies to provide meaningful access to limited English proficient individuals. A portal available only in English fails that obligation and excludes residents from self-service channels that reduce agency workload. GL Suite’s translation feature supports both compliance and equity goals simultaneously.
Regulatory agencies that invest in digital government infrastructure do more than satisfy a NASCIO priority or a DOJ deadline. They build the operational foundation that makes every other modernization initiative possible.
GL Suite provides the digital government framework state regulatory agencies need: accessible, secure, multilingual and built to operate at the pace residents now expect. Contact GL Solutions to learn how GL Suite supports your agency’s digital government strategy.
Renee Moseley joined GL Solutions in 2016 with an educational and professional background in research and writing, along with software documentation. At GL Solutions she produces informative content to help regulatory agencies stay current on news and information that supports their success.
