Better DMV service vowed

D.C. government officials have a new plan to reform the city’s long-troubled Department of Motor Vehicles by reducing wait times, coordinating computer databases and synchronizing vehicle-inspection and registration dates.

The plan, announced yesterday at the mayor’s weekly news briefing by City Administrator Robert C. Bobb and Department of Motor Vehicles Director Anne C. Witt, is called the “one-done” service philosophy. When the plan is fully implemented in January 2005, it is expected to cut in-person visits to motor-vehicle stations by nearly one half.

“For too long, there has been inconsistent and poor service in the DMV,” Mr. Bobb said. “We need and we will have a new service philosophy at DMV that will guide this agency to levels of efficiency and productivity that will be the envy of other DMVs across the nation. I believe firmly that we can do this. In fact, we will.”

Mayor Anthony A. Williams acknowledged that among D.C. residents, there is widespread dissatisfaction with services of the department.

“Our commitment is to change that,” he said. “Our commitment is to make the process as efficient and as customer-friendly as we possibly can.”

Mr. Bobb said the DMV’s administration has been restructured with 43 newly created management positions to replace 39 abolished positions. The additional management positions will include a general counsel, three training positions, two supervisory positions, six information-technology positions and personnel for a four-person office of service integrity, which would conduct audits, investigate corruption claims and detect fraudulent documents.

The DMV, which has 368 employees and an operating budget of nearly $40 million for fiscal 2004, was plagued by scandals last year involving ticket-fixing and illegal resale of temporary plates.

“Although this should go without saying, I will say this now loudly and clearly: One thing we will not tolerate, whether it’s at DMV or other parts of the District government, is illegal conduct by government employees or, in fact, our customers,” Mr. Bobb said.

By fall, Miss Witt said she expects to implement a mandatory two-year vehicle-registration program and synchronize it with the vehicle-inspection date to cut down on return trips to the DMV.

By the end of this year the city’s six motor-vehicle service sites will be able to offers driver’s license and registration services, as well as traffic adjudication for ticket payment and hearings. Four of the sites will have service hours on Saturdays.

Officials hope to offer the expanded services by integrating what are now three separate computer systems that track vehicle inspections, driver’s licenses and vehicle registrations, and ticket information.

Currently, three of the six sites offer vehicle-registration service, four sites offer driver’s licensing services and only one site, at K Street NE, offers traffic adjudication and ticket-payment facilities. The K Street NE site is due to close, while the long-delayed vehicle-inspection station on West Virginia Avenue NE will open in early summer with full-service capacity.

Construction on the inspection station was suspended last year because of problems with the building contractor, but will resume Jan. 15. Miss Witt said there are 90 days of work left to be done.

“It’s a lot of change,” she said.

Aside from a potential increase in the vehicle-inspection fee, which has not been raised since 1994, costs of the reorganization will not trickle down to customers in the form of additional fees but would be handled within the department’s existing budget, she said.

“Every number in our budget changed except for the bottom line number,” she said.