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HomeNewsArchivesMOTOR VEHICLES CHIEF LIKES DEPARTMENT IDEA

MOTOR VEHICLES CHIEF LIKES DEPARTMENT IDEA

April 5, 2004 – Sen. Adlah "Foncie" Donastorg got a strong vote of approval from the head of the Motor Vehicle Bureau on Monday for his proposed legislation to reorganize the agency into a separate department.
"It's a great bill," the bureau's director, Lawrence Olive, said. "It's about time something like this happened. It will take us out of all the problems we've been encountering."
Donastorg's bill would remove administration of the bureau from the Police Department and create a separate Motor Vehicles Department. He said the measure would "allow the police to focus on law enforcement and protecting citizens, letting them do what they are supposed to do."
However, the senator added, "If you are going to set up a new department, it should be a revenue-producing department. The new legislation will improve the agency with less bureaucracy. We need to be able to hold this agency accountable in terms of both revenue collection and service."
As an independent department, he said, "the MVB will be able to pay its own bills, pay employees and fix its equipment without going through so much red tape."
The bureau facility on St. Thomas in particular has long history of raising residents' hackles due to long lines, short hours and a bureaucracy that's become the butt of jokes. (See "Drivers' licenses: woes, dilemma, police response".)
Most recently, flooding triggered by last November's extensive rains wreaked havoc with equipment in the office, from computers to cameras to telephone lines to toilets, and inundated the inspection lane area. The bureau reopened on a part-time basis shortly before the Christmas holidays, with personnel conducting limited inspections and road tests. But it couldn't begin to catch up on the backlog of thousands of motorists seeking inspections, license renewals and other services.
It is still trying to catch up, currently processing registrations dating from December, Olive said on Monday. "We have done as many as 550 in one day," he said. The bureau will continue accepting late registrations until June 1, he said, then police will begin enforcing the law and issuing citations to drivers without a current registration.
But the St. Thomas facility is open three days a week on average, and it is operating with "two typists and two cashiers," Olive said. "Those girls do practically everything, with no lunch and sometimes no breaks. I asked the commissioner if we could open on Saturdays to accommodate the backlog, but he said there is no money for overtime."
Meanwhile, the St. Croix bureau facility is completely closed at the moment because of computer problems, Olive said. Repair efforts are under way, he said, but he has "no idea" when the computers will be up and running again.
Olive also said the computer system in his office is "ancient — a DOS system dating back 20 years."
Olive envisions making the new department basically a "one-stop-shop." "We could put in terminals for the Internal Revenue Bureau to pay the road tax and a terminal for the Lieutenant Governors' Office to do lien checks right here," he said.
Donastorg said the new department could bring in about $10 million annually in revenues if it had "adequate tools to work with." Currently the bureau collects between $8 million and $10 million, he said.
Both Donastorg and Olive say they are eager to change the bureau's status. "Every state in the union has a department by itself," Olive said. "It's only here where it's like this."
Police Commissioner Elton Lewis brought in an industry expert in February to offer suggestions for improving the bureau's efficiency. Harold Hammond, a vice president of the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, gave his suggestions for improving the bureau. His first was to upgrade the St. Thomas facility.
Hammond also noted that most states let drivers get their vehicles inspected at government-monitored gas stations and garages. And "the trend is not to inspect every year — every three to five years is often enough," he said, while "some states have repealed inspection totally." Other moves, he said, are toward having automobile dealers issue license tags and titles as agents of the government and allowing drivers with clean records to renew their licenses on the Internet. (See "Options eyed for more effective vehicle bureau".)
Olive said on Monday that bureau officials are well aware of Hammond's suggestions. "We have been trying to get the funding to use online registration, online driver's license renewal and mail-in registration," he said. "If we don't have the resources, we can't do it."
But, he added, "if this bill becomes a reality and we have our own department, all things will be put in place."
The department Donastorg proposes to create would be run by a commissioner with an assistant commissioner and deputies as needed. Certain duties would be transferred from the Police commissioner to the Motor Vehicle commissioner.
The department would be funded by either 10 percent of the revenues it brought in or by an appropriation of $1 million annually, whichever is greater. Any additional revenues would go into the General Fund. Employees, equipment, and any unexpended appropriations for the bureau would be transferred to the new department.
Donastorg said hopes the bill will be assigned to the Government Operations Committee soon. He said he is awaiting review of the proposal by the Legislature's legal counsel.

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