‘Frustration and disruption.’ NC lawmakers confront DMV over agency’s performance.

North Carolina lawmakers say they hear plenty from constituents about long lines, lack of appointments and other problems with the N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles.

With those complaints echoing in their heads, members of the House and Senate spent nearly three hours Thursday grilling DMV Commissioner Wayne Goodwin and his staff about the agency’s performance.

They asked about the DMV’s efforts to fill vacancies and replace outdated computer systems; how it manages the private contractors that run license plate offices; and why a visit to a DMV office can’t be like going to a Great Clips, the salon that lets customers check in for appointments online.

When it was over, Sen. Michael Lazzara said it is clear the DMV has significant room for improvement.

“As legislators, a broken DMV is a broken promise to our constituents,” said Lazzara, a Republican from Onslow County who co-chairs the Joint Legislative Transportation Oversight Committee. “This division has the largest customer-facing role in our state’s government. And instead of providing service, it’s a source of frustration and disruption to the lives of our citizens. Commissioner Goodwin, unfortunately this responsibility belongs to you.”

Goodwin acknowledged that the DMV has a long way to go. He said that when he got the job in early 2022, he set seven goals that include reducing wait times and lines at driver license offices, modernizing the agency’s technology, hiring more license examiners and increasing the number of services that can be done online.

“Within my two years as commissioner, objective metrics indicate improvement in each of those seven areas,” he told lawmakers. “We still have more to do, but there have been improvements.”

Goodwin said more than half of driver license office workers left or retired during the COVID-19 pandemic and that the vacancy rate for full-time permanent driver license examiners was 25% to 30% two years ago. That’s improved to about 11%, he said, as higher salaries and hiring bonuses helped bring on more than 250 examiners.

But the agency is still about 80 employees shy of being able to staff all of the work stations at the DMV’s 116 driver license offices across the state, Goodwin said. Something that would help, he said, is for lawmakers to allow the agency to convert 40 full-time temporary examiner jobs — those who work 11 months of the year and don’t get benefits — to permanent positions, which are far easier to fill.

Fewer appointments leads to frustration

The DMV has also tried to manage the flow of customers at its offices by making appointments only in the morning and allowing only walk-ins in the afternoon. It found about one in four customers with an appointment weren’t showing up and that increasing the availability for walk-ins created more flexibility for customers.

But reducing the number of appointments means they fill up quickly. Rep. Donnie Loftis, a Republican from Gaston County, noted that he recently found 68 of DMV’s driver license offices had no available appointments, something he hears about from constituents.

“I get hammered with this at home, that they go to make these appointments and there is nothing online,” Loftis said.

If no-shows are a problem, Loftis said, why can’t the DMV do what his doctor’s office did when he recently had his annual physical: Send repeated reminders about the upcoming appointment by text or email.

“Once I had that date and time locked and loaded, a week out I started getting reminders,” he said. “I got no less than five or seven to make sure I was going to be there.”

Goodwin said DMV does have “several million email addresses” for driver license customers and for the first time is looking to use those to communicate. Text messages would require further steps, he said, including consent of each customer to receive DMV messages on their cell phones.

Along those lines, Lazzara asked about the agency’s use of QR codes that allow customers to check in to a driver license office and be notified by phone when it’s their turn. The placement of those QR codes is inconsistent from office to office, he noted, prompting him to mention the Great Clips approach to texting.

The subject of technology came up repeatedly during the hearing.

DMV recently signed an agreement with the state of Arizona to use its cloud-based operating system that will replace all of the agency’s aging computer programs. The system will allow customers to create accounts and see all their records and do more business online, reducing trips to the office.

Asked how long before those features are ready, DMV’s chief operating officer, Brian Watkins, said it took Arizona seven or eight years to develop the system and that it will likely take three to five years for North Carolina to adapt it.

Thursday’s hearing comes as the legislature is studying whether to privatize part or all of the Division of Motor Vehicles. That study, ordered as part of last fall’s state budget, is due May 1. Lazzara pressed for the study but says he wants to wait for the results before considering any moves toward privatization.

Once more on license renewal issue

Lawmakers again asked Goodwin about two provisions in the state budget that aimed to reduce visits to DMV offices but turned out to run contrary to federal law.

Under one of those provisions, licenses granted to drivers age 18 to 65 will not expire for 16 years, twice as long as the current renewal period of eight years. The other allows drivers to renew their licenses online every time, rather than having to visit a DMV office every other renewal as they must do now.

Both provisions go into effect July 1.

But Goodwin says the provisions run afoul of the REAL ID Act, the law Congress approved in 2005 to tighten identification standards after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The law says REAL IDs issued by states are not valid for more than eight years. It also requires that the photo on REAL IDs be replaced at least every 16 years. That requires an office visit, contradicting the budget bill provision that says they could be renewed online.

Goodwin had asked for the 16-year renewal period in February 2023, before realizing it would violate federal law. He says he asked that it be removed from a bill last spring, but the message didn’t get to budget writers, who work behind closed doors. The provision appeared in the final version of the budget in September, which was released two days before it was approved and sent to Gov. Roy Cooper.

The other provision, allowing people to repeatedly renew their licenses online, was not one the DMV requested, but it, too, violates the REAL ID Act, Goodwin says.

Goodwin told lawmakers at a hearing in October that he was sorry for any miscommunication and asked that lawmakers reverse themselves and take both provisions out of state law. He made the same request Thursday.

“It is important that we correct this,” he said.

In an interview after the hearing, Lazzara said lawmakers have not yet drafted legislation to address the issue but likely will before the General Assembly returns to Raleigh on April 24.