Committee accepts $3,000 Thales gift to send staff to driver’s license system testing in Austin

The Honolulu City Council Committee on Government Efficiency and Customer Services on Aug. 21 accepted a $3,000 gift from Thales DIS USA Inc. to pay travel, hotel, meals and related expenses for Department of Customer Services staff to attend factory acceptance testing for the city’s upgraded driver’s license and state ID card production system in Austin, Texas, in September 2025. Chair Del Santos Tam called for objections and, hearing none, ordered the resolution reported out for adoption.

The gift is intended to let staff who use the system participate in hands-on testing and workflows before the system goes live. Kim Hashiro, director of the Department of Customer Services, said, “This is actually going to be, the next phase in our driver's license state ID, upgrade project, and this is where staff that actually uses the system is going to be participating in testing and going through various work scenarios to ensure that the new upgraded system meets requirements and that they also understand, how the processing is is going to occur because there will be some changes and streamlining, with the new system.”

Hashiro told the committee the travel will let staff practice likely work scenarios and confirm the system meets the department’s processing needs. There were no questions from committee members and no public testimony offered on the item.

The committee’s acceptance moves the gift forward to the next step in the council process; the chair reported the resolution out for adoption after no objections were voiced. No formal roll-call vote was recorded in the committee transcript.