Carroll County Treasurer, Jean Seidl, says her office has conducted driver’s license issuing and associated duties for about 15 months now, and she has put together a recap of how the traffic and extra duties have impacted her office and her staff. They are averaging 514 cards per month, just over 6,170 from July 2017 to June 2018. The county receives $7 per card, resulting in about $43,200 in revenue. This, however, is offset by the added expense of having to hire an additional employee to help provide services.
The Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT) is in the midst of transitioning from five to eight years on driver’s license expiration intervals. They anticipated 2018 as a peak year for these changes, so Seidl says they expect traffic at the office to decrease some in the future. Overall, however, they have seen some pretty substantial increases in face-to-face interactions since taking on these duties, and then another rise in numbers because of the new expirations.
Another thing that has gone up in tandem with these services is the need for intervention from a different office in the Carroll County Courthouse.
The staff at the Treasurer’s Office is also now providing Real IDs, which require additional time to process.
In order to obtain a Real ID, the customers must submit a state-certified birth certificate or valid passport along with any documents showing name changes since birth. A Social Security card is also required, along with two documents proving name and residential address. There were approximately 2,057 man-hours spent issuing driver’s licenses, approximately 260 hours for car drives and testing of five hours. Seidl estimates a conservative total of 2,322 hours. But, this does not include line drives, re-exams, phone calls, questions from customers at the counters, etc. She calculates bout 3,000 hours of work has been added to her office, but one full time employee is taking only 1,950 hours per year. This means an additional 1,000 hours of work has been added for the already busy staff members. Seidl adds that she had expected to be able to offer CDL testing by now, but they are in need of a 120 foot x 240 foot area, preferably paved, for the testing of backing maneuvers. Until they can locate a space, they will not be able to offer this service.
