The new commissioner of the North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles says he's working as fast as he can to eliminate long waits at driver's license offices.
Paul Tine joined Gov. Josh Stein and Transportation Secretary Joey Hopkins for a visit to a busy NCDMV office in east Raleigh Friday morning. The three spent about 20 minutes speaking with people who had been waiting in line for hours for a driver's license or road test.
Tine, a former state lawmaker, was named commissioner last month. One of his first acts, he said, was to move front-office staff to customer service jobs during the busy summer months.
"We've asked for volunteers from inside of the organization to come back out in the field and help us with that, " Tine said. "We've also gotten some interns that we're utilizing during the summer, which is our biggest time period, our biggest crunch."
21 offices will be open for Saturday walk-ins, starting May 31. Tine said he's also working to make more services available through the NCDMV website. Previously, it was a subsection of the Department of Transportation's. It now has its own domain: ncdmv.gov. The agency has also set up a Facebook page where customers can ask questions or leave feedback.
"People don't go to our website for information. They go to our website to perform jobs; they want to take care of a task," Tine said.
Stein, a Democrat, asked lawmakers to fund 85 new positions at NCDMV. His request was included in a budget written and approved by Republicans in the North Carolina House. The governor's request is not in the Senate GOP spending plan, but Stein said he hopes the chamber will concur. The governor also thanked State Auditor Dave Boliek, a Republican, who is conducting an audit of DMV.
"He shares our desire to make sure that the DMV works for the people of North Carolina. As he has said, the DMV is not political. It's about service," Stein said.
Tine warned that some changes will take longer to implement, such as replacing an outdated mainframe computer network with a modern, cloud-based system.
"It's going to take us years, quite frankly, to get that, probably three to four years," he said.
Gov. Stein said his family is not immune from long lines and a lack of appointments at DMV offices. A license for his daughter a couple of years ago required a drive to an office in Henderson, about 40 miles from his Raleigh home.
"We drove an hour to get the driver's license, and we were the last appointment of the day," he said.
