Ok, maybe not all, but definitely a lot.
I always figured that the State of Colorado did a good job. No state is going to be perfect. Where it focuses it's resources is always a compromise and no one is going to be totally happy. And the state does attract more than it's fair share of people looking for an easy secure job where they don't have to work very hard.
But still, Colorado ranks near the bottom in the percentage of state GDP it takes in taxes. At the same time, it tends to make those dollars stretch further than you would think possible. And in most cases (like higher education) the limits in what is provided seems to be dollars allocated more than anything else. (Yes the University of Colorado spends money on things it shouldn't, and has some non-productive people working for it - but every large organization has these problems.)
So what changed my opinion so radically?
This past Wednesday I took my youngest daughter in to get her learner's permit (no driving test, just the permit). And it took 3 hours and 50 minutes. When she got her number in line, there were over 150 people in front of her.
Today one of the interns at my company took his sister in to get her state ID. They were there for over 3 hours. So Wednesday in Fort Collins, Friday in Longmont - over 3 hours to get a license from the state.
This is inexcusable. What hit me there was the significant hit to the state economy. There are 54 driver's license offices. Assuming it takes them 4 hours to handle 200 people that is 10,800 people who have to miss ½ a day of work or 5,400 people who are basically removed from the economy.
That's right, the inefficiency of these offices removes 5,400 people from the economy every work day of the year. For people who are paid hourly the state has taken away 10% of their weekly income that week with their inefficiency. For companies the state has made them less efficient.
Democrat or Republican, this is clearly brain dead. The state does need to determine who is allowed to drive. The state needs to provide a relatively secure form of identification. This service is one of the fundamental jobs of the state government.
By the same token, there is no advantage in making the process so horribly inefficient. With rare exceptions, you do not drive people away with the long lines. So no matter how the state handles it, they do need to process all citizens. There is no savings in forcing people to waste 3+ hours to get their license. None.
The Solution
So here is my proposed solution.
- The pay of all driver's license employees is cut in half.
- At each office where 90% of the customers are handled in under ½ hour, employees receive a bonus equal to half their salary (taking them back to their present salary).
- At each office where 90% of the customers are handled in under 15 minutes, they receive an additional bonus of another 10%.
- Senior management is under the same plan but the 90% is counted across all offices.
I also think they should allow individuals to enter all the information themselves via the web, either from home or at the DoR office. This way the employee can just verify the documents brought in but doesn't have to type anything in.
Clearly this could be done, it merely requires the right incentive in place. And a state that understands that its citizen's time is valuable.
