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Pennington County treasurer says 605Drive conversion, staffing and phone queuing drive delays; county planning technology fixes
Summary
The county treasurer told commissioners a statewide motor-vehicle system conversion ("605Drive"), incomplete record migration and limited state support are causing slower title turnovers, longer mail processing and dropped phone calls; the office outlined fixes and staffing needs ahead of a move to a remodeled concourse.
Pennington County Treasurer Annette Brant told the Board of County Commissioners on May 6 that a recent statewide motor-vehicle software conversion (605Drive) has created record- and workflow issues that are lengthening title-transfer processing times and mail turnaround, and producing long phone queues that sometimes disconnect callers.
Brant said the county’s previous system used a barcode linked to driver license records; the new platform changed record formats and some data did not migrate cleanly. As a result, some title records must be corrected with state assistance. She said counties share limited state support time and that at one point Pennington County was in a long support queue. Brant also described three sources of customer delay she said staff see most often: the phone/queuing system, the volume of seasonal transactions and unresolved data conversions. "We were a hundred and ninety-fourth in line" for state support on a critical issue, she told the commissioners.
Planned fixes and budget implications: Brant described near-term steps: (1) buying a new phone system with better queuing and call-flow options (target rollout in June), (2) education for customers and pamphlets and web-based tutorials to increase online and kiosk use, (3) adding a self-service terminal in the new county concourse and (4) recruiting to fill open treasurer positions (the office budgeted 26 full‑time positions and currently had 20 filled). She said the county and state are negotiating lower credit‑card fees for online property-tax payments and added an e-check option that has doubled online usage. The treasurer’s office proposed modernizing lobby layout and moving one or more kiosks; she warned that additional kiosks would require county purchase and maintenance costs and that two existing kiosks sit in state-controlled facilities.
Why it matters: Brant and commissioners said the issues are visible to taxpayers who rely on motor-vehicle and tax services and that the problems are partly driven by external state system changes. Commissioners asked for a follow-up presentation that produces timing and estimated costs for phone and kiosk changes and a staff plan for recruitment and for handling unresolved 605Drive records.
