California DMV leadership overhauled over long lines and poor service

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday announced a shakeup of the state Department of Motor Vehicles, appointing its third director in a year and backing an overhaul of the agency’s practices in response to widespread public complaints of poor service, including hours-long wait lines and a botched “motor voter” program.

“I am not naive about the challenges facing the DMV,” Newsom said. “The technology is Byzantine.”

Newsom appointed tech industry entrepreneur Steve Gordon of San Jose as director of the DMV. His first job will be overseeing changes being executed by a so-called strike team appointed by the governor in January to address shoddy services and outdated technology at the agency.

The task force’s recommendations included revamping the DMV’s technology, training and processes.

The DMV became the center of controversy last year when customers complained of having to wait four to six hours at field offices as the agency deals with complications caused by Real IDs, a new driver’s license and identification card design required for airline passengers starting in late 2020.

The delays were worsened by frequent computer crashes blamed in part on faulty and outdated computer systems.

The strike team report released on Tuesday said that in August, average wait times were nearly two hours in the state’s largest DMV offices, and 16% of all customers experienced wait times of more than two hours.

“It is clear that changes are essential if the DMV is to meet its most immediate challenge: successfully meeting increased demand for REAL ID driver licenses before the October 1, 2020 federal deadline without the surge in wait times that customers experienced in field offices during the summer of 2018,” the report said.

In addition, the agency’s new “motor voter” program launched last year was plagued with problems that included duplicate registration forms, incorrect political party affiliations and the registration of as many as 1,500 people with legal U.S. residency but no citizenship.

The DMV says it has corrected the problems.

The Times also recently reported that the DMV launched the motor voter program in 2018 though state computer security officials discovered the department’s network was trying to connect to internet servers in Croatia.

The strike team embarked on a redesign of the DMV’s website to be more user friendly, approved the acceptance of credit cards at some field offices starting in September and streamlined the customer experience, creating a new personalized mailer for customers to help them get through their five-year and 10-year license renewals.

The DMV has also begun offering more kiosks and “pop-up” services at other state buildings, and more training is in the works for field personnel to use tablets to serve large crowds showing up for new driver’s licenses.

The strike team also oversaw the approval of contracts to upgrade the agency’s computer systems.

“Over the next 12 months, the DMV will undergo a series of hardware and software upgrades, streamline operational activities required to stabilize the environment in the event of an outage, roll out monitoring tools to better manage and track critical systems and explore network architecture alternatives to reduce connectivity issues and minimize risk of DMV field office system outages,” the strike team report said.

The state agency is also developing a marketing campaign to educate the public about the Real ID requirements and how to get smoothly through the process.

“Even with all of the Strike Team’s efforts, the department will still likely struggle to meet the expected demand,” the report concluded. “However, the Strike Team believes the department is better prepared to deal with unexpected challenges and is on a path toward successfully serving the people of California more effectively and efficiently.”

Gordon takes over the agency from acting director Kathleen Webb, whom Newsom named in January when he appointed the strike team to overhaul the DMV. Previous DMV director Jean Shiomoto retired in December amid the controversy over long wait lines and errors in the motor voter program that has registered millions of new voters.

Gordon, 59, was a managing partner at zTransforms for the last two years, and served previously as vice president of global service operations at Becton, Dickinson and Co., was principal consultant at SteveOnService and was co-founder of MySeatFinder. He also worked as president of technical services at Cisco Systems from 1993-2011, and he was an auditor for San Diego County from 1983-84.

Gordon’s annual state salary will be $186,389, and his appointment must be confirmed by the state Senate.

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