Thursday, Feb. 3, 2011 | 9:32 a.m.
CARSON CITY – Many motorists are frustrated with long waits for service at offices of the state Department of Motor Vehicles.
Director Bruce Breslow said he visited the Sahara office in Las Vegas last week at 5 p.m. and there was a two-hour wait. The average wait time at offices in Las Vegas is 48 minutes.
Breslow said he was told by the Sandoval administration that the goal is to get it down to six minutes.
He doesn’t know if he can achieve that goal, but he told a legislative budget subcommittee Wednesday he has plans to shorten delays.
He is seeking approval for 30 new employees, and all would be assigned to the four DMV offices in Las Vegas.
The department lost 93 positions during the 2009 Legislature. Furloughs requiring state workers to take off one unpaid day a month have caused problems, he said, since the offices are open on Saturday.
“Staffing has been a nightmare,” said Breslow, who has been on the job for 21 days.
He said DMV kiosks throughout the state are giving citizens another way to conduct business with the department without waiting in line.
Kiosks are placed at DMV and AAA offices. Breslow said he wants to increase the number from about two dozen to more than 80.
They would be placed where residents “live, work and play,” he said, such as commercial centers, colleges, rural areas and residential communities.
And these units would be expanded to handle renewal of drivers' licenses. They currently provide copies of licenses and the ability to register a vehicle.
The department has drafted a bill in the Legislature to require motorists to pay for the service. The agency is now picking up the tab and paying the owners of the units.
The state now pays $4.99 to the vendor for each transaction for a car registration and $1 if the motorist wants duplicates of his paper work.
The department goes before the Legislative Interim Finance Committee today to ask for a supplemental appropriation of $396,890 to pay the vendor for these kiosk transactions.
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