Vermont DMV outlines $104 million modernization; vehicle services live, driver services slated for November

The Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles told the House Energy and Digital Infrastructure Committee on Wednesday that the agency is midway through a multi‑phase modernization of a decades‑old mainframe system that Commissioner Andrew Collier said the Legislature funded with a $104,000,000 life‑of‑contract authorization and a $50,000,000 upgrade component.

Collier, who identified himself as eight weeks into the commissioner role, told the committee the project’s first phase — vehicle registration, titling and VIN services — went live in November 2023 and “was on time and on budget.” He said Phase 2, which covers driver services (licensing, online scheduling and a MyDMV account), is planned to go live “this November” and that testing will begin in March with a broader test cycle in the summer.

The modernization aims to replace a roughly 50‑year‑old mainframe that Collier said made some routine processing take weeks or more: “we went from weeks, to over over a month to get documents processed,” he said, and the new system allows many transactions to be completed “at the counter” or online in a single visit.

Why it matters: committee members pressed that a statewide DMV modernization affects most Vermonters who hold a license or vehicle registration and shifts the department from a paper, back‑office workflow to an online, customer‑facing system. The committee discussed both the immediate service improvements and the budgetary implications of large IT projects across state government.

Key project details

- Contract and budget: Collier stated the Legislature approved $104,000,000 for the contract over its life and described a $50,000,000 upgrade component tied to replacing the mainframe and associated modernization work. The agreement includes a planned maintenance/support phase. Collier said portions of the project received ARPA funds but did not provide a full funding breakdown in the hearing.

- Timeline and scope: Phase 1 (vehicle services) went live in November 2023. Phase 2 (driver services and account features) is planned to go live “this November,” with testing starting in March and additional tests over the summer. Collier said the contract is structured through 2031.

- Staffing and vendor model: Collier said about 13 DMV staff are directly assigned to the project, supplemented by Agency of Digital Services (ADS) staff embedded with the DMV and vendor personnel working at the project headquarters. The vendor named in testimony and slides was referred to as “Fast,” which Collier said was the company helping deploy the software. Collier praised the model of vendors placing staff in state to support implementation and retain institutional knowledge.

- Oversight and procurement: John Kelly of the Agency of Digital Services told the committee the state followed standard procurement practices for large projects, including a request‑for‑information and scoring process followed by independent review; Kelly estimated the procurement and contracting process for such projects can take one to two years.

Committee questions and discussion

Members used the hearing to press two recurring themes: how the state pays for large IT projects, and how agencies capture user feedback after a rollout. Representative Kathleen James asked whether agencies maintain a perennial IT reserve or are required to request large appropriations as projects arise; Collier and ADS staff said agencies typically budget for anticipated projects in their normal budget cycle and that excess agency funds roll into the transportation fund. Representative James framed the question as: “is there a place where you guys are setting aside money to say, okay,” noting the challenge of responding to very large, episodic IT price tags.

ADS staff and other committee members said the problem is common across state government, with big projects often funded from one‑time appropriations or special federal sources such as ARPA. ADS staff acknowledged the magnitude of statewide infrastructure needs and that planning across agencies is an ongoing area of work.

On customer feedback, Collier said the DMV collects user input through counter comment cards, emails and social media; he told the committee the agency plans monthly satisfaction surveys. “I’ve honestly yet to hear a bad thing about DMV,” Collier said, and he described active social media monitoring, including a staff member who fields Reddit posts about DMV service.

Operational details and follow up

Collier described a ticketing process (Jira‑style) used to track change requests, bug fixes and enhancements. Committee members asked for clearer reporting columns on the ticket table (open, in progress, verifying, closed), and Collier explained the slide represented active tickets and that closed items were counted separately. He also confirmed ADS remains embedded in daily oversight of the project.

What the hearing did not resolve

- A complete funding breakdown: Collier referenced ARPA and the transportation fund in discussion but did not provide an itemized funding schedule for the $104,000,000 authorization or the $50,000,000 upgrade in the hearing. Committee members requested additional detail.

- Cloud/hosting model: Members asked whether the new system is hosted or cloud‑based; Collier said he would confirm that detail for the committee.

- Exact procurement and contract documents: Collier said he would provide the contract number and additional procurement documents on request; ADS staff described the procurement steps but did not provide the full RFP or evaluation scoring in the hearing record.

Ending

The committee did not take formal action at the session. Members said they will follow up with ADS and DMV staff for additional documents — including contract identifiers, a funding breakdown, and the hosting model — and will hear additional testimony this week on enterprise HR/finance systems (Workday) that committee members said could overlap with some agency IT work. The committee moved off the DMV presentation to additional business after final questions and thanked DMV staff for the briefing.