Tax dollars at work.
From SF Gate: It appears the California Department of Motor Vehicles is, yet again, trying to clean up after itself.
The Sacramento Bee uncovered one possible reason why thousands of Californians have yet to receive a driver’s license in the mail, months after attempting to renew them. It comes down to a glitch in the DMV’s system. Big Opportunity Ahead SPONSORED CONTENT
Here’s what went wrong, according to the paper: Normally the DMV sends out renewal notices 115 days before customers’ driver’s licenses are set to expire. But to try and get ahead of the game, with long lines already plaguing DMV offices statewide, they began sending the notices out even earlier, from 120 to 150 days in advance of the expiration date.
Now, those who didn’t want to procrastinate and immediately paid online or by mail, are the ones who may be in trouble.
The problem is the DMV wasn’t prepared to process those early renewals. So even though payments may have been processed, there’s no record of them in the DMV system. Now, many customers are left without a license, even after their expiration date has passed.
Only those whose driver’s licenses expire Feb. 25 or earlier would be affected, The Bee reported. The system glitch was limited to those who tried to renew between November and January.
A department spokesperson told the Bee that the mistake may have affected tens of thousands of people, and the DMV was “working to contact the customers impacted and issue their driver license by mail as soon as possible.”
The DMV did not immediately respond to SFGATE’s request for comment on the mix-up.
Late last year, the DMV confirmed it issued 2.3 million Real ID cards that didn’t meet federal government standards; instead of requiring two documents to prove residency, the DMV was only asking for one. In the agency’s defense, the Department of Homeland Security had originally said that one document was adequate, then later changed course.
The change requiring two documents proving residency will be implemented starting in the spring.
Read the whole story here.