DMV audit reveals systemic problems, recommends separation from NCDOT

During a press conference on Monday, North Carolina State Auditor Dave Boliek equated the North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles (NCDMV) to Hurricane Helene with the release of his office’s long-awaited 435-page audit on the DMV.

“We’ve seen, for example, the response that our legislature and our citizens have given to western North Carolina (for Hurricane Helene) when we have a disaster and the DMV is at that level of emergency in the state of North Carolina,” he told reporters. “Our DMV affects the economy; it affects people having to take off work unnecessarily. It takes our students out of the classroom. This has to be fixed, and it has to be a top priority that includes the DMV, DOT, legislature, and the governor’s office.”

Boliek mentioned that he saw a news report this morning on TV that showed a line of people who had been waiting at the Avent Ferry DMV in Raleigh since 4 am, and said it was unacceptable.

“Folks, we’ve got to do better than that,” he said. “Our DMV serves 8.6 million North Carolinians, and about 350 people move here each day.”

Twenty auditors in Boliek’s office worked for the past six months in conjunction with the Institute for Transportation Research, North Carolina State University, the Bryan School of Business & Economics at UNC Greensboro, and the UNC School of Government to compile the audit which is broken down into three parts: an audit of information systems, a performance audit of the licensing and issuing function of the DMV and details of the budget and spending of the DMV, which can be found on page 207.

Additional audits of groups like license plate agencies will also be released in the coming months.

Auditors conducted one-on-one conversations with individuals in driver’s license offices across the state to help with their analysis.

“One thing to note as an overall issue that our audit found is a lack of detailed and measurably relevant metrics at the DMV,” Boliek said. “We need measurable data so that managers can know what they’re doing right and what they’re doing wrong.”

He said the audit showed that the customer experience is deteriorating worse than they expected, particularly over the last five years. Among the issues DMV employees are grappling with is the growing workload due to staffing issues, which in turn hurt customers, and outdated technology.

CUSTOMER SERVICE EXPERIENCE

• The average wait time was 1 hour 15 minutes from check-in, up 15.5% since 2019.
• 13.8% of visits in FY 2025 were over 2.5 hours, up from 78.8% since 2019.
• 47.5% of transactions occur outside customers’ closest office.

EMPLOYEE MORALE AND EXPERIENCE

• Low morale: Only 47% feel DMV has open communication; 43% viewed leadership negatively.
• Issues: Burnout, security risks, inadequate training.
• Salary: Below $50,000 for license examiners (see page 300 for detailed chart) in both rural and urban areas.
• Staffing: 160 vacancies.

Boliek said DMV employees have had customers lunging at them, including a customer who kicked a glass pane in, and a customer who followed a license examiner out behind the DMV office.

On the topic of staffing issues, he gave an example of how there is only one license examiner to serve 56,000 people in Harnett County.

Boliek said that the legislature’s recent appropriation of 40 additional license examiners and the expansion of license offices in its mini-budget bill, which is currently sitting on Democrat Gov. Josh Stein’s desk, is a good start. However, he said many more full-time positions need to be created, and temporary positions are not a good, stable option.

OUTDATED TECHNOLOGY

Boliek said the DMV’s technology is “frozen in time”, still using a COBAL mainframe system that is outdated and overdue for a replacement. He said a new system could take between four and six years to implement.

Boliek noted that the same problem is symptomatic across all of state government.

BIGGEST ISSUE: FRACTURED RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE DMV & DOT

But, the biggest issue affecting the DMV, according to Boliek, is what he considers the systematic breakdown in the historically fractured relationship between the DMV and the Department of Transportation (NCDOT), where the DMV is housed.

The current structure limits the DMV’s strategic input, budget autonomy, and modernization involvement. The DMV also relies on the DOT to submit budget requests, but only 31% of DMV staffing requests were included in the DOT budget. The DMV was also excluded from the planning and procurement phases of improvement efforts led by the DOT.

“DOT needs the DMV, not the other way around,” Boliek said. “The DMV currently generates 30% of DOT’s revenues but accounts for only 3% of the expenditures while lacking sufficient operational authority. DMV collects more than $3.5 billion each year, which includes $1.3 billion in vehicle taxes, but it also remits $2.2 billion plus every year to the DOT, while DMV’s total expenditures are roughly $200 million per year.” A detailed analysis can be found on page 267 of the audit.

Boliek recommends that lawmakers consider making the DMV an autonomous agency with direct control over its budget, strategic planning, and operations.

In addition, auditors recommended that the DMV develop a comprehensive strategic plan independent of the DOT; an in-depth staffing analysis and multi-year staffing plan to address examiner shortages; identify staffing needs by location; convert temporary examiner roles to permanent, and adjust pay structures when needed.

Also, auditors said DMV should build and maintain a performance dashboard, which should include the correct customer visit duration, appointment availability, scheduling trends, customer satisfaction, staffing availability, examiner productivity, online service usage, and adoption rules.

Boliek said the only recommendation that DOT Secretary Joey Hopkins and DMV Commissioner Paul Tine disagreed with was separating the agencies.

OTHER RECOMMENDATIONS

Other recommendations to speed up the process of getting a license or renewal include:

• Pop-up” shops in malls could be an option at various locations across the state, so people wouldn’t have to wait outside in the cold or heat.
• Obtaining a license through a third-party, such as a license plate agency, for a fee.
• Offices with limited examiners have specific days for renewals, driver’s tests, etc.
• Putting kiosks for license plate agencies in grocery stores, for more foot traffic.
• Making sure people aren’t making multiple reservations online and clogging the system.

Throughout the press conference, Boliek stressed that the problems with the DMV did not occur overnight.

“What we’re seeing is that if the government was paying attention to what was going on previously, something would have been done to assist the DMV, and that may have been at the secretary level where it was stopped,” he said. “We didn’t dive too deep into that, but the fact of the matter is, it didn’t happen overnight. I’m going to be a dog with a bone on the DMV, and we’re going to make sure that recommendations are implemented and that the DMV moves forward on behalf of the people of North Carolina.”

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