Delegates question DMV commissioner over motor voter and kiosks

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — You’re not the only one who gets peeved with the Division of Motor Vehicles.

Delegates expressed frustration with the West Virginia DMV commissioner over two issues on Friday.

Gary Howell

“A lot of frustration,” concluded House Government Organization Committee Chairman Gary Howell, R-Mineral.

One issue was the agency’s failure to provide required reports assessing the rollout of a motor voter law that passed three years ago.

A separate one was a difference of opinion over the placement of kiosks meant to be a public convenience and to alleviate crowds at DMV offices.

DMV Commissioner Pat Reed was subpoenaed to appear before the Government Organization Committee, Howell confirmed.

Delegates bristled first over the tardy reports and then over the placement of kiosks.

The motor voter law was meant to encourage the DMV to gather voter registration information when people get their driver’s licenses.

The costs of doing that were to be paid by the DMV, and the program was to go into effect by Feb. 1, 2019 — in other words, at the start of this month.

If the DMV wasn’t able to meet the requirements, it was supposed to make a presentation to the Government Organization Committee explaining what resources it needed.

The DMV was also supposed to have provided a report by Jan. 1, 2018, with a full list of what’s required to implement motor voter.

None of that happened.

“When they are late with them, we can’t fix it,” Howell said. “If the agency doesn’t give us the information, we can’t craft laws to help them overcome any deficiencies they might find.”

Pat Reed

Reed said she didn’t realize the reports were in code and that an employee who had that responsibility did not follow up. The employee now works elsewhere, she said.

“I take full responsibility. However, I was not notified that I needed to do the reports,” she said. “It’s my regret that I didn’t know ahead of time. But we have lots and lots of contracts and lots and lots of code. And it’s easy to miss something like that.”

She said completion of the reports depends, to some degree, on the work of a new vendor contracted to start in October. But she said 62,000 registrations for new voters were still accomplished last year.

“With this new vendor, we’ll be able to do everything the code set forth,” she said.

But while speaking before the committee, Reed wasn’t able to provide the details delegates wanted to hear.

She did offer an early version of a report, but it was incomplete.

“This?” Howell asked, waving a sheet of paper in the air. “This single piece of paper is both reports?”

“Well, it should have been two sheets,” Reed replied.

“It’s front and back,” Howell said.

The committee chairman pressed the commissioner on when a final answer would be ready.

“What I’m wanting is the two reports required by code that have not been produced yet. Are you going to have those reports done in a week, or are we going to have to wait until October for the vendor?” he asked.

“I’ll do my best,” Reed said.

Delegates then moved on to the kiosk question.

They were considering a bill establishing requirements for when a new kiosk should be placed in a community.

“The problem is, the DMV has not been putting the kiosks in rural areas where they’re needed,” Howell said. “The commissioner has not made the effort to put these in rural areas.”

The bill says no county with a population of 25,000 or more should be without a main DMV office. Any county with a population lower than that without DMV office within 25 miles of the county seat have a kiosk within the county.

There’s a July 1, 2021, deadline.

A fiscal note from the DMV concluded that complying would require closing offices in Moorefield, Franklin and Welch, which would save $252,350.

DMV says it would add 19 kiosks with an annual expense of $37,944 per kiosk. That totals $720,936. The cost is to pay the vendor. But there was a question from the committee on whether that assumes each kiosk would generate no money at all from fees.

The kiosks would be in Moorefield, Glenville, Franklin, Petersburg, Grantsville, Middlebourne, Marlinton, Wester Springs, Welch, Harrisville, West Union, Pineville, Madison, Clay, Hamlin, Hinton, Weston, Saint Marys and New Martinsville.

The Government Organization Committee wound up passing the bill on Friday, but with an amendment specifying the DMV offices in Moorefield, Franklin and Welch should stay open. The bill now goes to the full House for consideration.

Reed said she didn’t realize she would be asked to speak about the kiosk bill.

“That was the first I heard about it,” she said.

Eric Nelson

Delegate Eric Nelson, R-Kanawha, asked whether the kiosks have alleviated crowds at DMV offices or whether complaints are on the rise.

“How high in volume are complaints right now?” Nelson asked. “All of us are hearing more and more.”

Reed said the agency has trouble keeping employees because they are relatively lowly-paid and transfer to other agencies when possible.

The kiosks were meant to reduce pressure, she said, but they haven’t caught on quickly. And they are limited. They can only renew licenses if there have been no changes such as address.

She said DMV has placed kiosks in high-population or highly-trafficked areas because they had to generate enough fees to pay the vendor.

“The problem has been the DMV did not have money to do the kiosks. So I had to do them on a transaction basis. So that is how they have been done and that’s why they’re placed where they are,” she said.

“It would be great to have them all over the state, but we have to have funding for that.”





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