DMV has a plan to shorten wait times at its license offices

The state Division of Motor Vehicles announced Tuesday that it will reassign staff and hire more driver’s license examiners to try to reduce the long lines at its driver’s license offices around the state.

The DMV says it is working to fill 80 existing vacancies for driver’s license examiners, plus add 20. In addition, 14 examiners who work at mobile units around the state will be reassigned to offices where customers have been waiting for hours to be served.

DMV Commissioner Torre Jessup acknowledged last week that many DMV offices have been overwhelmed with customers this summer, resulting in lines that stretch outside and wait times that can take most of a day. On Monday, Jessup asked DMV and Department of Transportation employees to volunteer to hand out bottled water to customers waiting outside DMV offices.

Jessup said summer is usually a busy season for the DMV, as students come in to get licenses and IDs before school starts. But this summer has been especially busy as people heeded the DMV’s message not to wait to get a REAL ID, a type of driver’s license that satisfies federal identification standards that take full effect in October 2020.

It’s not clear how long it will take for the DMV to hire new staff. Four days ago, the NCDOT posted an opening for driver’s license examiners that will remain open for three months. The posting lists a salary range of $31,200 to $45,420.

“This will be a constant posting on the state’s website,” Jessup said in a video released by DMV. “We’re looking to get those positions filled as quickly as possible and improve our efficiency in the hiring process.”

Last week, Jessup indicated that he would have to wait until the General Assembly returned to Raleigh to ask for money for additional staff or new offices. But NCDOT spokesman Jamie Kritzer said the department is now working with the Office of State Budget and Management to find any available money to beef up DMV’s staff.

Kritzer said DMV is getting more aggressive about advertising the open jobs on social media and with flyers in all public DMV and NCDOT offices, and has posted them statewide to increase the size of the applicant pool, but added, “It’s not going to be an overnight fix.”

In the meantime, the DMV announced Tuesday that it would reassign staff to its busiest offices, which Kritzer says include Raleigh offices on Spring Forest and Avent Ferry roads and the Durham office in the Hope Valley Commons Shopping Center. Kritzer said DMV is also assigning some driver’s license examiners to teams dedicated to doing road tests, so other examiners won’t need to leave their desks to do them.

DMV said it would create “express lines” for customers who have quick transactions in offices that have available space, though it did not specify which offices.

It also said DMV employees would talk with customers in line to make sure they have the paperwork they need and encourage them to do business online if possible. A driver must visit a DMV office to get a REAL ID, but a standard license renewal can often be done online.

Kristen Mehrbach had to visit a DMV office to get a new license after moving from New Jersey this summer to begin teaching middle school in Raleigh. Mehrbach arrived at the office on Spring Forest Road in Raleigh at about 7 a.m., opening time, thinking she would walk right in. Instead, there was a line around the building.

“I lived in the most densely populated state in the country. I’ve never seen DMV lines like that,” Mehrbach said. She joined the line with people who had taken time off from work and women with children in tow and says it took more than two hours just to get into the building. It took nearly five hours to see someone and arrange to get her new license.

“It was insane,” she said.

In a statement released Tuesday, Jessup said: “Our top priorities are to issue accurate and timely documents in an efficient manner for all our customers. We will be taking many steps over the coming weeks and months to recruit, hire and train new staff and will continue to look for other ways to cut customers’ wait times.”

This story was originally published August 14, 2018 at 12:56 PM.