DMV workers literally sick from stress; overtime up 232 percent this year
Taxpayers already on the hook for $4.8M in OT pay this year
Overtime paid to DMV field office employees more than tripled in the first six months of the year, compared to the same time last year, as the beleaguered state agency grapples with massive customer demand for federally-mandated Real ID cards in the midst of new software and customer processing systems.
It’s literally some employees with stress.
One technician at an East Bay field office, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she fears she might lose her job, was so overworked she took a leave of absence, she said. She woke up with headaches and went to bed with headaches. Then her stomach started to hurt, and she made sick began throwing up, she said.
“I was forgetting things; I was crying,” she said. “You got customers cussing you out, and managers telling you to ‘Go, go, go!’ That was my final straw.”
Since the DMV began in late January issuing Real IDS – a federal form of identification required for domestic flights beginning in 2020 unless the traveler carries a passport – customers have complained of long lines and waits of up to eight hours. Some have waited only to be turned away because they had the wrong paperwork.
As complaints rolled in, overtime paid to field office employees rose a whopping 232 percent in the first six months of the year, compared to the same time period last year, according to data the DMV provided this news organization in response to a public records request.
The number of overtime hours rose from 47,489 in 2017, at a cost of more than $1.4 million, to 152,816 hours in 2018, costing taxpayers more than $4.8 million. That doesn’t include July, or the month of August, when the state began sending DMV headquarters staff and employees from other state agencies to help triage the hourslong wait times. The agency in August also started offering Saturday hours at 60 field offices.
Despite these efforts, on Monday, Republican gubernatorial candidate John Cox urged Gov. Jerry Brown to convene a special session of the legislature to audit the DMV, echoing a request from lawmakers that had previously been denied.
It wasn’t just Real IDS slowing down lines, said Cullen Grant, a manager at a Los Angeles field office. The department also changed its customer processing system, which forced employees to take additional time to check in customers. Around the same time, the DMV also started requiring customers wanting a driver’s license or ID card to fill out applications in new, electronic kiosks.
Not everyone is computer savvy, Grant said, so technicians who normally staff windows to process people’s paperwork were pulled from the counter to help customers navigate the new electronic system.