Governor’s report: Expect longer wait times at DMV
Technological and customer-service challenges are expected with implementing Real ID
Things could get worse before they get better at California’s Department of Motor Vehicles, according to a new report Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office released Tuesday.
As many as 28.2 million Californians could request a Real ID between March 2019 and October 2020, raising the possibility of long wait times for customers and a return to the hours-long delays seen last summer.
“The DMV is not out of the woods yet,” the report said. “Significant challenges remain between now and October of 2020, and these strains may continue to mean frustrating wait times for customers.”
Newsom called for the review of the DMV when he took office in January, recognizing that a host of technology and customer service problems had damaged Californians’ confidence in their government. An April poll from Probolsky Research found that nearly one in four California voters, including 39 percent of Republicans, thought the DMV was in such poor shape it could not be fixed.
“The DMV is the retail face of government,” Newsom said at a news conference on Tuesday. “There’s a reason people don’t like government. They say government cannot do its job.”
The 18-page report largely focuses on the DMV’s challenges with implementing Real ID — a program mandated by federal law that requires people to get an updated ID card by Oct. 1, 2020, if they want to board airplanes or enter other federal facilities without a passport. It also touches on issues with outdated
technology and poor customer service.
To prevent delays, Government Operations Agency Secretary Marybel Batjer in the report outlines a series of recommendations to fix a department Newsom once called ‘chronically mismanaged.” Batjer was the leader of the DMV ‘strike team’ Newsom created in January to analyze the department.
Batjer explained the DMV needs to get people in need of a Real ID card into their offices immediately, while simultaneously redirecting customers with other issues to self-service kiosks and outside partners like AAA.
“We want to encourage people to go to the DMV when they need to. … We don’t want this huge surge. If you need a Real ID, go now,” Batjer said.
Among the plans now being deployed are personalized mailers nudging customers to get their card immediately and changes to the DMV’s website to clarify the steps customers need to take to get a Real ID.
The DMV has also issued a few hundred cards by holding “pop-up” DMVs with large companies, such as Health Net and Intel.
The report promotes a new analytical projection model to strategically fill open windows at DMV offices by highest priority. It also recommends procedural improvements for technicians to reduce the time needed to scan and authenticate documents required for Real ID.
Despite the steps being taken to improve the DMV, Newsom acknowledged the department has a difficult road ahead. “Forget spiking the ball. We don’t even have the ball in our hands.”
Critics say the report was short on specifics and that Newsom failed to deliver on the promise he made during his February State of
the State Address for “reimagining the DMV.”
“I’m really disappointed in this because this isn’t reimagining a new DMV. It’s really making excuses for the old one,” said Assemblyman Jim Patterson, RFresno. “I didn’t hear anything that suggested this was a really serious, bold, re-imagining of the most significant public-facing entity of California. (Newsom) dressed the old DMV up in new clothes and tried to convince us that we don’t notice it’s the same.”
Patterson said the only silver lining was Newsom overhauling some people in upper-level management. He announced Steve Gordon would replace Acting Director Kathleen Webb, pending approval by the state Senate. Webb will remain on staff as chief deputy director.
Gordon was a managing partner at zTransforms from 2017-19 — a company that provides technology and consulting services to transform businesses. He also worked as vice president of technical services for Cisco from 1993-2011. He has minimal experience in government, though he did work as an auditor for San Diego County from 1983-84. He is registered to vote with no party preference.
Newsom said Gordon “randomly went on the website and applied” for the position. He added, “We found a new director, someone who wanted to do it.”
Newsom’s strike team offered a series of proposals to address issues besides Real ID.
The DMV will soon accept credit card payments at field offices — a goal that Newsom highlighted in January when he announced his first budget proposal. The project will start at the Davis DMV by the end of September before expanding to Fresno, Victorville and Roseville the following month. The technology will then be offered at all 172 field offices.
The DMV also has awarded contracts to IBM
and CGI to begin efforts to stabilize an outdated technological infrastructure that has created connectivity issues and system outages. An hourlong technology outage occurred on Tuesday, preventing customers from carrying out transactions in some offices.
The report also urges the DMV to address backlogs at call centers by hiring more workers. In 2018, the average hold time was 55 minutes. Those delays constantly change but rose to 60 minutes recently.
The strike team report makes only a single mention of Motor Voter — the state-mandated program that automatically registers Californians to vote when they renew drivers’ licenses at DMV offices.
The department acknowledged making 105,000 registration errors when it launched the program last year.
Newsom said an outside firm called Ernst & Young will release a report in the coming weeks diving into problems with Motor Voter. But that report will not examine the issue of ineligible people being added to the voter rolls, including one confirmed case of a non-citizen being erroneously registered to vote last year.
In April, Secretary of State Alex Padilla told The Sacramento Bee he is examining voting issues. Newsom deferred to Padilla on the status of that review.
“Obviously all of those things are of concern,” Newsom said. “All of those things happened not on my watch, but I’m responsible for fixing them. … I’m going to work on a lot of these things moving forward.”
DMV offices to close half-day Wednesday
The DMV is closing all of its offices until 1 p.m. Wednesday to train workers on Real ID. The training aims to clear up any confusion for workers and provide better customer service ahead of an anticipated “summer surge.”