NC Transportation Secretary Joey Hopkins on NCDMV issues: 'A lot of things we've got to fix'

Thank you for doing this

I know that you've been very busy um in this

role

I mean have you tried to kind of hit the

ground running I feel like you are a lot of

different places and I guess I'm just wondering in these

few months what has been your biggest priority

Oh yeah definitely it's been a whirlwind these these last

few months and biggest priority for now and that all

that changed late September last year is Helene recovery

Obviously that's a huge issue and I've been covering that

um and I feel like I need to talk to

you about that as well

But I want to speak with you about the DMV

specifically because we just get a deluge of emails and

texts

I have friends text me every day Please do a

story about the DMV

I'm like I am

I'm doing them all the time

I don't want to have to keep doing that

What are your initial thoughts on that I mean I

guess as a resident of North Carolina have you been

to the DMV recently trying to use their services It's

probably been a couple years ago

I got my real ID and we have two younger

sons and so I've been with them through DMV and

the whole experience with that and you know bottom line

is there's a lot of things we gotta fix you

know we have people waiting too long uh people can't

get appointments

Uh we just have a lot of issues on the

driver's license side

We have a lot of employees that are working hard

but they're frustrated too

The systems aren't keeping up you know and it's just

frustrating to everybody and it's just it's a high pressure

situation anyway

We all get the bad feeling when we go to

the DMV or go to the dentist or even go

by a car so you kind of start off there

with a little anxiety and then when things don't go

like you want to go that makes it worse

Our employees are frustrated

They get more frustrated when they're dealing with customers that

are in a bad mood and all of it just

adds together and the bottom line is we gotta make

it better

Is the biggest issue for you the wait times in

general or is it something else Yeah it's a combination

of things and wait times is at the top of

the list but also if you try to go and

schedule an appointment most of our offices offer appointments from

opening either 7 or 8 o'clock depending on the office

to noon and you can't get appointments you know I

look on a regular basis and

Many days I look and there's no appointments

If there are any there's a handful and they're they're

2 almost 3 months out before you can get them

What is the solution and from your standpoint Yeah so

it's a combination of things

First and foremost we need to get more people you

know North Carolina is a growing state you know we're

growing population our numbers in general have stayed the same

We've got actually a pretty good low vacancy rate over

at DMV right now

Our own DMV management and our uh HR leadership have

been working on that and we've got that vacancy rate

under 11% overall which is lower than state government as

an average but one thing we're struggling with we

We house a lot of uh temporaries in our DMV

driver's license offices

They do what we call triage and kind of help

make sure that you as a citizen have the right

paperwork that you're in the right office that they know

what you're doing

They let you know whether we think we can serve

you that day based on the numbers that are there

We can't hire those temporaries right now so that's an

issue that we're having

So we've got to find other ways to do that

Our systems are 30 years old

And so they're slow

They break down often on our uh back office systems

They're not connected to each other so we're in the

process of modernizing that now but that doesn't happen overnight

It's an expensive proposition but it's also a lengthy proposition

to do that and we're just getting started now with

the new modernization system

What does that new modernization system entail I mean do

you have anything that you're trying to revamp right now

So we're actually working with the state of Arizona they

they have a new system that they've made it available

to other states if you wanna use it we're one

of a small handful of states that have picked that

up and we're starting to kind of kick that process

off and we're in the process of working with DIT

to advertise to bring a vendor in to take the

Arizona uh system

And make it work for North Carolina it's where we

can integrate all of the uh driver's license the license

plate systems and everything that we have

Are you talking about privatization Well and that's privatized in

a sense because we have private vendors that do that

and we already uh outsource a lot of the DMV

functions

Most of our license plate agencies are are privatized now

They're private operators that run those

uh all of our driver's license offices are public

We have state employees that do those

All of our back office stuff our our the vendor

that we use for online work that's privatized

Do you do you want there to be more of

that I'm just trying to understand what when you're working

with the state of Arizona are you with in regards

to the offices that deal with license renewals and things

that are public right now um do you see that

continuing or is that what you're hoping as far as

to privatize I'm not sure yeah no I'm just when

you're saying um about

We're I mean do you obviously there's been studies and

stuff that have looked into this before

Do you see the dynamic of what is publicly run

within the DMV changing I don't know that it would

change wholesale

We don't have any wholesale plans to change whether we

privatize more or less and I I think is a

something like a driver's license it's a that's a public

service it's really hard to privatize that

I mean you may could in an urban area where

you've got a lot more volume but we're statewide operation

you know we treat people in Raleigh and Charlotte and

Greensboro but we also treat people in Bath you know

and done in the smaller communities across the state and

I don't know that there's a profit margin for an

office like that to do where you don't have as

much uh visitation

We have these part time offices

You know that may only be open a couple times

a day things like that but it's still a necessary

service so the citizens don't have to drive so far

to get that

In regards to the Arizona stuff I do have one

more question

I think it is uh my sister lives in Arizona

and she's had a very different experience with the DMV

and I'm wondering um when you're talking about using kind

of their mod

What exactly is that is that the license on the

phone or is that more than that Can you just

explain that to me software is there it's their software

system that they've made available to others now we are

looking at other DMVs across the country and see how

they run things and seeing picking trying to pick out

the good things that they're doing and we hope to

copy that we're bringing a consultant in uh we're working

with the state auditor's office on the ongoing audit

You know and and we're just it's it's a wholesale

top to bottom we're also looking at the culture of

DMV you know because we really wanna make it a

good customer service experience overall but that starts with how

do you feel when you get there How long do

you wait Is it easy to get your services Is

it is it easy to navigate the website Is it

clear for depending on what you're going there for maybe

it's a renewal maybe it's a new license maybe it's

a real ID do you have the right credentials and

it's easy for you to find out which credentials to

bring with you when you go

I'm curious because normally the commissioner role is appointed from

my understanding this time the the job application

Was posted

Can you give me any insight into why that decision

was made It was just a different route

Yeah and and we've posted it before you know the

the DMV commissioner is appointed by me as secretary of

transportation but we have posted it before in the past

and we took that route this this time to open

it up the process and try to get more candidates

so we could get a larger group of candidates probably

more professional candidates than we've had in the past

And that's our goal

We're actually going through the interview process now

So that was my understanding there were 40 applications or

40 applicants

I don't know if that was everyone who applied or

who were viable but

Uh where are you at then I know you said

you're interviewing

How many people are you interviewing Yes I don't know

how many total applicants

I don't see that but we had over 40 applications

that were referred to us

We had other resumes that were sent in outside the

application process and so we're going through the interview process

now

Who are these people that are kind of fitting the

bill for you as you make your decision So for

me it it's somebody that's that's led large large organizations

there's somebody that's done change management

It's somebody that has a uh background in processes and

process improvement

When do you think you're gonna make your decision So

hopefully in the next few weeks we'll make a decision

and then moving forward we'll work with that selected candidate

on the transition into the role

When do you like would you like to see someone

officially in the role I would like to see somebody

in sooner rather than later

You know just as soon as possible

And why is that Well it's it's time for us

to move forward you know we we we'd recognize what

the need is we've got a lot of positive things

happen as far as defining the specifics and hopefully finding

some solutions to that where we can make a difference

and we need a leader there to to lead that

and get it going

In terms of the solution to make the DMV a

better customer experience how big of a factor is the

the new commissioner Is it a big piece of the

pie or is it one of you know many other

slices It's one of many but it's one of the

larger ones we've got to have the right

Leader there because they've got to be able to deal

with the customers and understand things from their perspective they

got to be able to deal with the employees and

understand things from their perspective and help make some changes

in that realm but they've also got to deal with

us on our end on the political side you know

me the executive branch the legislative branch and others so

they've got a tough job coming into this role

Secretary Hapins is there anything else on this topic that

we haven't discussed Yeah not that I know of

I mean well a couple things we're we are next

week opening up another 42 offices at 7 in the

morning so that'll put us at 92 total

So that's that's almost doubling what we already have and

that'll be 80% of our driver's license office that are

adding a day to their work day

So 80% of them have a 10 hour work day

that'll open up more appointments hopefully we'll be able to

serve more people

We're adding a few more offices to our uh summer

hours

That's where we're open from 8 to 12 on Saturday

that we're growing that by 4 so we'll have 20

of those and that starts the week after Memorial Day

and runs just before Labor Day which are usually our

busiest months

That's right so that'll help out some of this time

uh some of the issues that we're having real ID

deadlines coming up in about a month

And so that's been postponed in the past

That's not our decision when that happens or not that's

a federal decision

If that sticks you'll have more people that'll come to

offices to get real IDs

We're also at that transition now where the people that

renewed online for the first time they have to come

back into our offices now to renew and get their

picture made in the office

That's right yeah it's like creating this big bottleneck effect

I wanna ask you about the temporary workers when you

when you're saying you're

That the vacancy rate yeah it it is a lot

lower than it used to be

I do think temporary workers are are helping a little

bit with just staffing in general but obviously there's a

shelf life to that

Those workers are not gonna get the same benefits as

full-time employees

I mean do you see temporary workers as a permanent

solution I just I I don't even know

Kind of where you you stand on that obviously the

governor's budget proposal is trying to create I think 85

new permanent positions

Yeah so I I do not think temporary workers are

the permanent solution

Our our vacancy rate is based on our permanent positions

not temporary positions so we struggle right now hiring temporaries

and and part of that is because we're such a

great economy here in North Carolina

You know we have a low unemployment rate we have

a this is a place people wanna raise their families

They wanna live they move they're bringing their businesses here

and so all of that is combining to make it

harder for us to hire people

It hadn't uh shown itself so much on the permanent

employee side here in the last couple of years because

we've been able to drive that vacancy rate down but

we haven't been had the same success with our temporary

employees

So we've asked the governor for more employees

He's put it in his budget request and it's actually

over 100 uh new permanent positions over the next 2

years

2 years OK um how would you rate the DMV

right now Oh it's poor yeah yeah we've we've got

a lot of room for improvement and we we're focused

on that and we're gonna make improvements

I've covered this for so long and by so long

I mean like 3 years but every time I do

a story I'm like here's the problem here are the

things they say are going to make it better and

honestly anecdotally based off of viewers and just looking at

the available appointment it seems like it has gotten worse

There are some things that have gotten better like the

Vacancy rate with employees but how can you ensure that

this is finally going to make the difference that people

still want I think this is the first time where

there's been a coordinated effort to make an improvement

You not only have the Department of Transportation and DMV

you've got the governor's office you've got the state auditor's

office trying to help and we've also got the legislature

we're all hearing it and we're all got that collective

uh effort to make it better

Yeah it sounds like there's support now for

Funding and and for adding those new employees

Yeah I'm I hope so you know we'll we'll see

the General Assembly budget in the near future and I'm

hoping they support that too

If it's not supported what do you what do you

do from there Well we just have to keep doing

the the other things that we can do

There are some process improvements that we can make to

to make it better and we'll be looking at that

too

All right I don't wanna take up any more of

your time

I'm I'm sorry that it's all DMV

Is there anything on any other topic that you want

to say you know yeah I just I just wanna

not for us not to lose the focus on Western

North Carolina

I think that these as these other things storms and

wildfires and other things happen you know that that causes

us to to change our focus a little bit but

this is the most devastating storm in our state's history

Our largest storm from a DOT perspective before this was

Florence and it cost us about $250 million worth of

damage in eastern North Carolina

In Western North Carolina we've got from a Department of

Transportation perspective about $5 billion worth of damage

Uh our crews our contractors our consultants they've made great

progress

We've already spent nearly $600 million

On repair work out there that we've had a lot

of success stories but that's just over 10% of where

we need to be so we've got a long way

to go and we wanna keep the focus on that

out there and improving

All right thank you so much for doing this

I appreciate it