DMV provides extension to drivers with expiring or expired licenses

By CHANSE WATSON,

Managing Editor

BOISE— The Idaho Division of Motor Vehicles has implemented an emergency extension through Oct. 31, 2018, for all Idaho drivers with expiring or expired driver’s licenses due to recent DMV office closures. Information about this extension has been communicated to county sheriff, local, state and national law enforcement and is in immediate effect.

ITD DMV Administrator Alberto Gonzalez implemented this emergency extension on Tuesday, Aug. 28. This decision was made less than 24 hours after severe vendor software issues forced most DMV county offices that issue driver’s licenses to close their doors on Tuesday.

There are some exclusions to the extension; including Commercial Drivers License (CDLs) holders who do not have a legal presence document on file with Idaho’s DMV and drivers whose privileges are currently withdrawn until reinstatement requirements are fulfilled.

Specific to DMV license services not being available, ITD states that it is working closely with their system vendor, sheriffs and county staff to get services online as quickly as possible. Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter also has called a working group of stakeholders together to move forward with a short and long-term fix.

Shoshone County Sheriff Mike Gunderson told the News-Press that the licensing office closure is being handled on a day-to-day basis and it unknown as of Thursday if the system errors will continue into next week.

“We are just as frustrated as the public with the continued failure of the system and apologize to our citizens for any inconvenience,” he added.

DMV Offices across the State of Idaho have been plagued by intermittent shutdowns and commuter errors since ITD implemented system upgrades earlier this month.

“Idaho’s computer system for issuing driver’s licenses and identification cards will upgrade this month from a 1980s mainframe to a more modern system. To make this transition, all county sheriff’s DMV offices that issue driver’s licenses and identification cards, will be closed Thursday, Aug. 9 and Friday, Aug. 10,” ITD said in a news release prior to the closures.

Office closures extended past those dates though and even when they did reopen the following week, system bugs and irate customers led to the ITD call center in Boise being flooded with complaints.

Working with limited resources for over a week now, DMV staff and customers were once again let down when ITD announced on Aug. 27 that the system would once again be down statewide.

Gonzalez released a statement the following day regarding the outages:

“This level of service affecting citizens, sheriffs and the Idaho Transportation Department is unacceptable. ITD has been continuing to work with our vendor as they work toward a solution, but outages have increased and even spread to other states. We need an Idaho solution.

ITD’s solution is to eliminate the dependency on the real time communication with our vendor’s software. ITD plans to implement the solution statewide by Thursday. It would allow county staff to input customer information in person without having to communicate in real time with our vendor. It will be stored on a server. At the end of the day, information would be provided to the vendor.

We believe this will allow county and ITD staff to provide a level of service our citizens and partners deserve.

To our partners at the county sheriff offices: We appreciate and share your frustration and concerns and are committed to fixing these problems. We are ready to meet with sheriffs and partners on solutions that will help us move forward.”

Silver Valley customers or agencies with questions or in need of documentation to support the extension are encouraged to call the ITD DMV at 208-334-8586 or SCSO at 208-556-1114.

The Idaho Transportation Department contributed to this report.