House Transportation Committee reviews DMVcontracts, VT Trips go-live and ongoing costs

DMV staff briefed the House Transportation Committee on the department—s integrated services program, known as VT Trips, saying the driver-services portion is scheduled to go live on Nov. 11, 2025 and will replace the agency—s legacy mainframe systems.

The presentation focused on the technology and service contracts that feed into VT Trips, the estimated implementation and operating costs, and several ancillary contracts (call center, credit-card processing, vehicle-valuation, VIN verification, card production, inspections and cash-transport services). DMV staff told lawmakers the implementation cost was about $50 million and that next-year maintenance and operations for VT Trips are budgeted at $6.5 million, a figure that could rise toward $8 million in FY27 as driver services are added.

Why it matters: VT Trips will centralize vehicle titling, registration, dealer licensing, tax collections and driver licensing in a single system that will also record transactions at the point of sale. DMV staff said that consolidation will make revenue and compliance data available immediately rather than with the weeks-long delays the agency saw on the mainframe.

DMV—s contractor for the core titling/registration/driver-services system is Fast Enterprises; the state name for the system is VT Trips (Vermont Title, Registration, Identification and Permitting System). DMV staff said the system already supports vehicle titling and registration and is in the driver-services implementation phase that will bring issuance and maintenance of driver licenses and IDs into VT Trips.

Budget and revenue flow: DMV staff estimated roughly $380 million flows through the DMV—s systems annually and said the point-of-sale integration in VT Trips is the primary revenue collection channel for the department. The agency proposed $6.5 million in annual maintenance and operations for next year in its budget and warned the figure may increase when driver services are fully implemented.

Payment-processing and fees: DMV staff reviewed the credit-card/debit processing contract administered under a Tyler Technologies master agreement. The FY26 budget line for payment processing is $1.9 million. DMV staff said the state negotiated a 2.3% rate on many card transactions; online debit-card transactions can be processed at a lower per-transaction fee (about $1.50) when identified as debit rather than credit. DMV staff also said the state collected about 199,000 driving-record requests in FY24; the total charged per record is $18, of which about $4 covers the technology vendor—s service and the remainder is retained by the state.

Call center, queuing and appointments: DMV staff described several contracts that support customer access. A queuing and scheduling contract that currently provides appointments and in-person queuing will be embedded into VT Trips when driver services go live; DMV staff estimated about $150,000 in savings from that consolidation. The department also has a call-center contract (vendor named in the presentation as 20 Second Century) that schedules appointments for customers who lack internet access; that contract was described as roughly $20,000 per month. DMV staff said the call-center vendor is U.S.-based and required to staff a minimum number of agents under the contract.

Other contracts and services: - VIN verification: DMV manages an API-based VIN lookup service. The next-year budget for that agreement was described as $35,000, and staff said an incremental increase (about $6,000) is likely to add electric-vehicle data elements. - Vehicle valuation: The department uses a JD Power vehicle-valuation service to calculate purchase-and-use tax values; DMV staff said that contract costs about $103,000 per year and supports both passenger vehicles and power-sports valuations. - Card production: Physical driver-license and ID-card production is a separate contract that DMV staff said is U.S.-based and currently priced at about $33.30 per card for standard cards and about $5.24 for an "enhanced" card component; the vendor handles production and postage. DMV staff said that Phase 2 of driver services will embed more functionality in VT Trips and is expected to reduce the scope of the card-production contract to card issuance only. - Automated testing and equipment: A contract for electronic driver-testing hardware/software and hosting is budgeted at about $143,000 in FY26 and will include an equipment refresh; staff said the testing equipment typically has a 3-to-5-year refresh cycle. - Vehicle inspection program: The ABEP inspection program contractor supplies inspection station equipment (tablet, OBD scanner, wireless printer) at an initial industry purchase cost DMV staff cited at roughly $1,700 per station; next-year budget support for the inspection program was listed at about $1.4 million. DMV staff said training for inspection mechanics is supplied through a memorandum of understanding with the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), and the state pays up to about $60,000 annually for that training. - Cash and deposit transport: DMV staff described a courier contract to transport daily deposits from six DMV branches to the state depository. The courier arrangement was framed as a risk-mitigation requirement: branches can send $7,500 to $10,000 per day and the current contract includes fidelity/crime insurance. DMV staff estimated the courier service currently costs about $100,000 per year and that the per-trip rate is roughly $45.

Questions and next steps: Committee members asked for usage statistics, transaction volumes by site, call-center usage numbers and the system charter or original expectations for VT Trips. DMV staff said those data are tracked and said they will provide statistics to the committee on traffic, call-center usage and the program charter and savings estimates. Staff also said several current contracts will cease or be reduced once VT Trips driver services are live (for example, the separate queuing and scheduling contract), producing modest near-term savings but increasing ongoing maintenance costs for the new system.

No formal committee votes or motions were recorded during the portion of the meeting captured in the transcript.

Ending note: Committee members thanked DMV staff (Diane, Renee and Brandy were named in committee remarks) and requested follow-up materials and usage statistics as VT Trips approaches its driver-services go-live date.