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On his sixth-month anniversary of taking over one of the state government’s most troubled agencies, Department of Motor Vehicles Commissioner Paul Tine came to the legislature Thursday to give an update on how it’s been going.
Tine painted a rosy picture and provided some statistics to back it up. And lawmakers on the Transportation Oversight Committee appeared mostly pleased with what they heard — a notable change from their testy relationship with Tine’s predecessor Wayne Goodwin.
Goodwin led the DMV in former Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration before resigning this summer, under increasing pressure from the public and new Gov. Josh Stein, over long lines and other issues.
Wait times are down nearly an hour since the summer, Tine said:
- July average wait time: Two hours and 11 minutes
- October average wait time: One hour and 19 minutes
Part of that is because the summer is peak season for the DMV, but another part of it is new laws aimed at letting people do more online without needing to go to a DMV, as well as expanded weekend hours and self-service DMV kiosks in a growing number of grocery stores around the state.
But there’s no new state budget, and Tine cautioned lawmakers that if they want to see those expanded Saturday hours continue into 2026, they need to fund it soon. The money set aside to pay for those extra hours is expected to run out in February or March, he told the committee Thursday.
“We’d love to keep them open, but we’re going to have to figure that out,” he said.
To people who still need to go in person, Tine said he needed to publicize two tips:
- You don’t need an appointment.
- There’s very little reason to show up hours before the office even opens, like many people have been doing, especially as the weather grows colder, he said. Tine said he he doesn’t want people standing around for hours for minimal benefit to themselves.
“You don’t have to show up early,” Tine said. “People are just creating an extra long wait for themselves by coming in at 5 a.m., 4 a.m., 3 a.m. I mean, if you’ve got to be the first person in and out in the morning — fine. But otherwise, we’re going to get you in the system.”
The presentation Tine gave on Thursday was essentially the same as the one he gave last week to a different group of state lawmakers. But Thursday offered more chances for members of the state legislature to hear the updates and ask him questions.
Tine said one of the fixes he’s worked hardest on is improving morale at the agency, which has faced scrutiny for years by the general public, the local media and, most recently, by State Auditor Dave Boliek. The theory is that being able to stop or at least slow down turnover at the already-understaffed agency should help keep up the improvements.
Delays and staff shortages initially caused by the Covid-19 pandemic have been exacerbated in the five years since by a combination of low pay for DMV workers, an influx of new customers needing to get REAL IDs, and state funding that hasn’t kept pace with North Carolina’s booming population.
The Office of the State Auditor released two audits in August that detailed a deteriorating customer experience at the DMV, including increasing wait times caused in part by employee burnout, low staffing and aging technology. North Carolina’s population jumped 30%, but DMV staffing only jumped 10% over the last 15 years, members of the auditor’s office told lawmakers last week.
Tine has also credited legislative changes with easing the ID-renewal process and workload on the division. And he said the division is working on a request for funding and flexibility with job requisitions.
State lawmakers approved $1.2 million in funding for the division in August to hire more license examiner positions. More than 60 new positions created by the funding were filled less than a month after the money was approved — a considerable feat, considering the state has had difficulty filling jobs across agencies as it competes for talent with the private sector.
Hiring a new state employee is typically a months-long process, but Tine said Stein moved resources around inside of state government to fast-track those new hires. There are now dozens more DMV workers across the state because of that, he said, all in place months ahead of schedule.
“The governor called me and said, ‘You have 30 days to hire all of these new positions,’ which I thought was aggressive,” Tine told lawmakers Thursday. “But I said, ‘Okay, let’s go.’ And he gave me [human resources help] and full support with [the N.C. Department of] Commerce… and then we were able to hire all of those in the first 30 days.”
About 4.1% of the DMV’s examiner positions are currently vacant, down from 10.9% in April, Tine said. But he reiterated the need for more funding to hire more people, reminding lawmakers that the state has been booming even as the DMV’s budget has actually shrunk in recent years.
“Funding is going to is a concern of mine for this year,” he said. “We are issuing more licenses. We’re seeing more people. We’re doing more operations. But we still have the same funding that we had before. Actually, less.”
No one on the committee promised any more money — legislative leaders recently said they don’t plan to pass a new budget at all this year due to political disagreements between Republicans in the House and Senate — but they did express confidence in Tine to keep improvements coming.
“I need you do a good job, but you’ve exceeded my expectations so far,” the oversight committee chairman, Rep. Phil Iler (R-Brunswick) told Tine Thursday. “I know you’re not done. You’re just getting started, and you really got a good business plan.”
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