Department of Motor Vehicle offices across the state started closing an hour early this week to give staff already exhausted from dealing with a new computer system more time to handle a spike in driver’s license renewals.
Secretary of State Matt Dunlap said he decided to close the doors on DMV offices at 4 p.m. because long lines had been keeping staff and some customers in the buildings long after the official 5 p.m. closing time. The curtailed schedule is in effect until further notice, most likely into the fall.
“It’s bad enough to have our staff there for 13 hours,” he said, but customers who were in line before the doors closed ended up waiting until 6 or 7 p.m. to be served.
That was costing the department a lot of overtime and creating bad morale, not only among workers but customers.
“It sounds counter-intuitive that reducing our hours would actually provide customer service,” Dunlap said, but by closing the doors at 4, customers will at least get helped by 5 or 5:30.
The current problem at the DMV, which last month kept customers waiting as it tried to get the next phase of a $13 million computer installation up and running, is historic, Dunlap said.
He said there’s a traditional spike in driver’s license renewals every few years and “there’s 190 percent surge in foot traffic,” into DMV offices right now.
Dunlap is looking at adding temporary staff to help with the crush, but needs to do it within his existing budget.
Meanwhile, he said, between the computer system installation and the longer lines due to renewals, “we’ve completely strung out our staff. The amount of overtime people have to put in is not sustainable.”
Dunlap inherited the computer problem from the last Secretary of State, who discovered about a year ago that $6 million of the $13 million budget for a new DMV computer had been spent, but nothing worked. The project is now moving ahead, but Dunlap ran into problems last month when the department installed the part of the program that handles driver’s licenses and driver history.
“Actually our computer system is running very smoothly now,” Dunlap said Monday, but the long lines that were caused by computer woes last month and this month’s heavy volume are making customers unhappy.
Sen. Dennis Damon, D-Hancock, chair of the Transportation Committee, which has oversight of the DMV, said he’s been in touch with Dunlap and backs his decision to close DMV office doors an hour early.
“It’s a bit of a tradeoff,” he said, in terms of inconveniencing the public in the short term to allow the staff to get caught up on their workload.
“We have a spike in usage exacerbated by the time of year,” he said, “when many of the employees in motor vehicles take their vacation time.” On top of that, staff are tired from long hours trying to get the new computer system to work, he said.
“We can only ask so much of people before they start to push back,” Damon said. “At some point, people can’t deal with this. I’m surprised and quite pleased that the efforts of our employees has been as continuous and valiant as they have been.”
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