Electronic plan proposed to process titles with DMV

Jace Radke

Friday, Dec. 1, 2000 | 10:01 a.m.

A local executive wants to bring the Department of Motor Vehicles and Public Safety to the cutting edge of technology when it comes to the tedious process of processing automobile titles.

Randy Baldwin, vice president of lending at the Clark County Credit Union, is soliciting banks, credit unions and auto dealers for donations to help switch the state's system of forms and typewriters to electronic transmission.

"Electronic lien and title processing software allows vehicle titles to be transmitted electronically, much like e-mail, to and from financial institutions and the DMV," Baldwin said. "The idea really started from a small issue that gave us a chance to look at how we could improve what was happening."

The small issue was a March court case involving odometer fraud that determined that the filing procedures for obtaining auto titles were not being followed as set forth in Nevada law. That finding forced the DMV to revert back to a cumbersome three-part form that had to be typed out.

"The cost for Clark County Credit Union to process thousands of automobile titles jumped from $60 to nearly $3,000 a year," Baldwin said. "We also had to physically go to a DMV office and purchase the forms for 50 cents apiece, so we started to look at ways we could streamline the process."

Baldwin said he has so far gained the support of 20 local credit unions and Bank of America to help pay for an electronic transferring system similar to the ones already in use in California, Idaho, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington and Florida.

DMV spokesman Kevin Malone said that implementing such a system is something that the DMV is fully behind, but he added that it may take a while to get it in place.

"We have the computers that can do it now, but we'll need to get a couple of programmers to write the code to get it up and running," Malone said. "We have requested those positions in our 2001 budget, that will need to be approved by the Legislature. Once the funding is in place, and the banks do their part, it would help us tremendously.

"It's just good business sense that would help our efficiency on the over 500,000 titles that we now process by hand."

Baldwin hopes to see the financial institutions he is rallying come up with $100,000 to help purchase the needed software for the banks to run the system. Electronic transfer will not only help the DMV, but the banks as well, Baldwin said.

"If a financial institution needs to find the status of a title, we have to fight through busy signals and hold," Baldwin said. "Then when we do make it through, we can only ask for about five titles at a time. The new system would allow us to log on and get whatever title we wanted without having to call the DMV."

Minor changes will have to be made to state law to allow for electronic transmitting of titles, Malone said. Malone estimates that after the law is amended, and if the 2001 Legislature approves the DMV's budget, it could still take as long as another year to get the system up and running.

Electronic transmitting is already a staple in other areas of the DMV.

"From an overall perspective we started getting the results from smog tests electronically in 1999, and that has worked superbly," Malone said. "In April we started Internet and telephone renewals, and in the first four months of that we've already had 35,000 renewals. That's 35,000 fewer envelops we have to open. Anything we can do to make the transfer of information more efficient is something we'd welcome."