Kiosks coming to a DMV near you

Friday, April 9, 2004 | 9:29 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The kiosk installed five months ago at the Carey Avenue branch of the Department of Motor Vehicles in North Las Vegas is so successful that the agency is going to put 14 more of them at major offices around the state.

A motorist who wants to renew vehicle registration can complete the transaction with cash or a credit card within two minutes using the kiosk, rather than waiting in line to conduct business with a clerk, Ginny Lewis, director of the department, said.

The kiosks will be placed in four Clark County DMV offices, then expanded to the Reno-Sparks area, Lewis said.

She told the Legislative Interim Finance Committee Thursday that about 1,000 customers a month use the Carey Avenue kiosk that allows the business to be conducted much like a bank ATM.

The committee allowed the department to move $245,000 in next year's budget into the current year to start purchasing the other units, which will start being installed in May.

Department officials also said that the waiting time for other customers is being reduced. Clay Thomas, deputy director of the department, said the 2003 Legislature authorized full staffing at the offices. As an example, he said, the wait time for a customer at the Carey Avenue office in March 2003 was 87 minutes and 26,000 transactions were completed. This March the waiting period was reduced to 55 minutes with 28,000 transactions, he said.

Lewis said the department would not ask the 2005 Legislature for more workers.

But the department is running into a problem with the growing use of credit cards to pay the tab.

Dennis Colling, deputy director in charge of administration, said there has been a 34 percent increase in the use of credit cards. Last year there were 676,000 credit card transactions.

All transactions conducted over the Internet in renewing registration are done by credit card, and the department encourages this to keep the customer out of the offices. But the state must pay an average of $4 to the credit card company for each transaction, and that added up to $3 million.

Lewis said the state made a decision initially not to charge the customer the transaction fee for paying by credit card.

Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, said the state doesn't want to discourage people from using the Internet or the kiosks.

And there is no authority in Nevada law to pass the fees on to customers who use Visa, Mastercard or Discover cards.

Lewis said she is working on ways to solve this problem and will approach the 2005 Legislature with suggestions.

The Finance Committee authorized an emergency allocation of $820,000 in highway fund money to be used with other funds to pay the fees to the credit card companies.