DMV mistakenly sends $19 million to local governments, school districts

By Ian Whitaker

Published Thursday, May 19, 2016 | 4 p.m.

Updated Friday, May 20, 2016 | 2:07 p.m.

A programming error with the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles’ online payment system wrongly directed more than $19 million to school districts and local governments throughout the state, but they won’t be asked to return the money.

The governor’s office said today that recent maintenance on the department’s myDMV online system identified the error, which inadvertently sent money from car registration fees directly to local governments and school districts rather than the state's general fund.

“No individual motorist was affected by this error, but we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience it may have caused the local governments and school districts,” DMV Director Terri Albertson said in a statement.

The error was reportedly made when the myDMV system was initially coded in 2013 and resulted in more than $19 million in misdirected payments over 36 months, until the error was identified by a programmer in March.

“Quality control processes didn’t catch it,” Gov. Brian Sandoval’s chief of staff, Mike Willden, said today.

The Clark County School District received more than $5 million in erroneous payments, the most of any entity statewide. Overall, government entities in Clark County received $11.7 million.

The error was fixed as of April 1.

Only online payments made by myDMV users were affected. Mailed and in-person payments were distributed correctly, and nobody was overcharged or undercharged for payments, Willden said.

Created as a one-stop shop to avoid having to wait in line, myDMV allows people to pay fees, check the status of applications and complete paperwork remotely.

Vehicle registration fees are collected under what’s known as the governmental services tax, or GST.

That money has typically gone directly from the DMV to state coffers, but legislators voted last year to gradually shift a portion of the proceeds to the state highway fund.

That meant the DMV had to reprogram the system. When it did, programmers discovered the faulty code.

Willden didn’t say why the local governments and school districts failed to note the mistake.

“The state will not ask the school districts or the local entities to repay the $19 million that has been paid to them in error,” he said. “They will have to recalculate their projections for the future.”

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correctly reflect the amount of money received by Clark County entities. | (May 20, 2016)