I am pleased to report that the Department of Motor Vehicles started processing applications for driver's licenses and identification this morning. I want to share with you some of the steps that our agency and our partners in state and local government are taking to meet our customers' needs and to mitigate the inconveniences that they have experienced as a result of the recent VITA/Northrup Grumman service outage.
Beginning today, DMV offices will offer extended service hours, and all hands will be on deck to help our customers. Specifically:
• All 74 of DMV's Customer Service Centers (CSCs) will stay open until 6:00 PM today, tomorrow, and Tuesday through Friday of next week..
• Fourteen of the agency's CSCs will offer extended hours on Saturday, September 4th. Rather than closing at noon, these CSCs will remain open until 6:00 PM. (For a listing of the fourteen CSCs please clink the following link: http://www.dmv.virginia.gov/webdoc/general/news/news.asp?id=6037). Per request of the Governor, these fourteen CSCs will also be opened on Sunday, September 5th from 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM and on Monday, September 6th from 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM.
• DMV will closely monitor customer traffic in each of the CSCs through next week, and will extend service hours on an as-needed, day-by-day basis.
• The Department will be bringing in additional staff to support CSC operations during this recovery period, including part-time trained personnel. Over the past week office managers have sent many of the agency's part-time staff home in response to the decline in customer traffic. The resulting savings have given DMV the resources to deploy those staff strategically now that they are acutely needed.
In addition to these steps, I will be executing my authority as Commissioner to issue licenses for up to eight years. As a result, the validity periods of most licenses and ID cards that expired during the service disruptions will be extended by 20 days. For example, licenses that expired August 25, 2010 will be valid until September 14, 2010, allowing customers added time to renew prior to the new expiration date.
Along with all the steps DMV is taking, I am happy to report that State Police and local law enforcement are supporting our efforts during this challeging period. Representatives of state and local law enforcement have stated that Virginians whose licenses expired during the service outage will not be ticketed for an expired credential until they've had a reasonable opportunity to apply for a renewal. DMV welcomes this commitment from law enforcement, which will relieve one of the principal concerns that many Virginians have had about the consequences of the outage.