Web renewal of vehicle tags stuck at 14 percent

To re-register, 72% still visit local offices, legislators hear

LITTLE ROCK -- About 14.4 percent of Arkansas' motor vehicle registration renewals are completed online each year and officials want more Arkansans to register online, a state official told lawmakers on Thursday.

"You could see, if we could bump that up to 50 percent or 60 percent at some point, we would accomplish a lot," said Tim Leathers, deputy director for the state Department of Finance and Administration.

Arkansans have been able to complete their vehicle registration online through the Arkansas Streamlined Registration System since 1999, and "we have tried various programs to try and get [more] people to do that, but we've had limited success," he said.

About 72.4 percent of the renewals are done at the state's 134 revenues offices, Leathers said on the basis of the department's figures from the fiscal year that ended June 30.

About 1.5 million of 2.1 million in vehicle registration renewals were completed at the state's revenue offices in fiscal 2015, while about 311,000 registrations were renewed online, according to the department's figures.

These "are walk-in customers still wanting to go into that local revenue office," Leathers said.

"Some of that is cultural," he told the Arkansas Legislative Council's Joint Performance Review Committee.

"In some of those smaller communities, people know the people in the revenue office, and they like them and they get their paperwork and they'll go to that local revenue office because they prefer to do that," Leathers said.

"Until we get younger people that are more used to technology, we may not overcome a lot of that," he said.

About 8.9 percent of motor vehicle registrations, including the paperwork for the renewals, are mailed to the Finance Department, according to department figures. They totaled about 191,000 last fiscal year.

About 2.9 percent of renewals are done over the telephone, Leathers said. Callers call a telephone number, provide a renewal ID number and a verification code from their renewal notice and key in their credit card number to pay their fees. Such renewals amounted to about 63,000 in fiscal 2015, according to the department.

Roughly 1.45 percent of renewals are handled at "our kiosk system [with tablet devices] that we are developing" in some of the larger revenue offices, Leathers said. Those amounted to 31,000 in fiscal 2015, according to the department.

The kiosks are in revenue offices in Benton, Bentonville, Bryant, Fayetteville, Fort Smith, Jonesboro, Sherwood, Springdale, Russellville and west Little Rock and at the revenue office west of the state Capitol in Little Rock, according to department records.

Kiosk users are informed the next time they need to renew, they can complete the process from home via Internet, Leathers said.

State Rep. Kim Hammer, R-Benton, said he asked Finance Department officials to appear before the legislative committee he co-chairs because he's received "some feedback from around the state about the length of time it takes to get through" the local revenue offices and he wanted the department to explain the steps it's been taking to remedy the matter.

Leathers said the department's revenue offices employ 472 people and handled 4.1 million in transactions in the past fiscal year.

These transactions included the 2.1 million registration renewals, 973,000 first-time vehicle registrations, 895,000 new driver's licenses and 107,000 other assorted transactions, he said. The offices collect $531 million in taxes and fees each year.

The offices' annual budget is $24.4 million according to department records; 16 of the 134 offices are part time, typically opening a day or two per week.

Leathers said the vehicle registration process is complicated for Arkansans and state officials have tried to simplify the process over the years.

Leathers said the offices and their locations "were mainly established back in the period of time when we did not have technology and we had to put people in places to handle the business that we had and it was labor intensive. ...

"As much as we hear about wait times and complaints in [the revenue offices], we hear people that come from other states and what they have to deal with, [and] we think [the offices] do an excellent job in representing us and you out there in the community," he said. He said the Arkansas Legislature has enacted a law extending the period for a driver's license from four years to eight years and "eventually those people won't have to go to the revenue offices after that fourth year, so we will start seeing some demand decrease as a result of that legislation."

But state Rep. Dan Sullivan, R-Jonesboro, said some states contract out the services offered through the revenue offices rather than having the state operate them, and he wondered if officials have looked at the potential cost savings of contracting out these services to the private sector.

Leathers said state officials haven't studied that option but may do so.

Twelve years ago, then-Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee's administration announced plans to close 33 state revenue offices, estimating it would save $640,000 per year. The Legislative Council, opposed the move, voting to ask the Huckabee administration to reverse its decision to close the offices.

By February 2004, 26 municipalities in Arkansas had agreed to pay all costs, except those for personnel and supplies, to keep their revenue offices open in their towns.

The Huckabee-era Finance Department closed the part-time revenue offices in Carlisle, DeValls Bluff, Elaine, Gould, Gurdon, Marvell and the full-time revenue office in east Little Rock, according to the department. It also closed the part-time Horseshoe Bend office in 2003, but it was reopened in March 2013.

NW News on 07/31/2015

Upcoming Events