Gov. Newsom orders complete DMV overhaul

A new strike team has been brought in to reinvent the beleaguered state agency

SACRAMENTO >> In one of his first acts as governor, Gavin Newsom on Wednesday ordered a complete overhaul of the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles, calling the beleaguered agency “chronically mismanaged” and vowing a reinvention.

The agency has come come under fire repeatedly for issues ranging from eight-or-more-hour waits to botched voter registrations for thousands of people, to workers caught sleeping on the job. Employees reported feeling stressed to the breaking point as overtime climbed 232 percent between June 2017 and June 2018.

And, in November, questions emerged about whether the state’s REAL IDs were compliant with federal regulations and whether the agency could meet a Jan. 10 deadline for certification. The Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday granted the state agency a last-minute extension to meet those requirements, despite the government shutdown, extending California’s deadline to April 1.

Without it, some 2.4 million people who had already braved long lines to apply for a REAL ID, along with everyone else planning to fly, would have been forced to carry a passport for all air travel beginning Jan. 22 — rather than October 2020, as the DMV had told its customers.

The agency’s director, Jean Shimoto, resigned in December after 38 years with the department. Her deputy, Bill Davidson, became the acting director on Dec. 31.

Newsom tasked Marybel Batjer, the California government operations agency secretary, to lead a “comprehensive modernization and reinvention” of the troubled agency and make recommendations for new, long-term leadership and reform. In a statement, Newsom’s office described Batjer as “one of the most accomplished management experts in state government” and said reform efforts would emphasize “transparency, worker performance, speed of service and overall consumer satisfaction.”

The announcement

comes on the heels of a new request from the DMV for an additional $40 million for the current fiscal year, which ends on June 30, to continue providing the level of service it has been offering, said DMV spokesman Armando Botello. The agency began offering weekly Saturday service at 60 field offices in August to combat the long lines caused by a surge in applications for the REAL ID and a switch to a new computer system.

Those measures appeared to have helped. The DMV reported it reduced waits by an average 86 minutes between July and December and the times remained better than the target levels of less than 15 minutes for customers with an appointment and 45 minutes for those without an appointment.

The DMV measures wait times from the moment a customer receives a number at the front desk to the moment they are seen at a window. It doesn’t include time standing in line to get to the front desk, which customers previously reported often took several hours.

It took Redwood City resident Carolyn Hartman nearly a year to renew her driver’s license, she said, because her local DMV never seemed to have enough staff to administer a driving test, despite her making an appointment each time. She waited two to three hours on each visit, she said, only to be told she had to come back a different day.

She was finally able to take her driving test in November, she said, after calling in February to book her first appointment.

“It was quite an adventure,” she said. “Fortunately, I guess I’m a really patient person.”

But that wasn’t the case with a lot of the customers she observed yelling at staff in anger over long waits or the lack of adequate information on the agency’s website.

“It was really frightening, actually,” she said. “The staff was fine — they’re used to everyone standing there and yelling at them — but they were so burned out.”

Assembly member Jim Patterson, R-Fresno, one of the most outspoken for reform at the DMV welcomed Newsom’s announcement.

“What a difference an election makes,” Patterson said. “(The DMV) has failed over and over again to provide the most basic of services to California drivers.”

“The words he is using are music to my ears,” he said.