Minnesota DMV computers so messed up it will cost $43 million more to make them work right

That price tag will fix all the glitches and tackle all the backlogs by July.

And make needed enhancements by the fall of 2019.

Oh, and a chunk of that money is needed by March 1. It's unclear how much.

That was the sobering message delivered Wednesday, Jan. 31, by top officials with the state departments of Information Technology and Public Safety.

"It's a tough sell," said Dana Bailey, executive director of projects and initiatives for MN.IT, Minnesota's information technology department. "But it's a necessary one. Unfortunately, it's our only option."

The system, known as MNLARS, was in planning for the better part of a decade with development starting in 2015 at a cost of about $93 million before it was launched in July. Immediately, problems surfaced at license centers throughout the state, resulting in long lines and drivers unable to obtain current licenses or titles that they're legally required to have. State officials have said in hindsight the system wasn't ready and have issued numerous apologies.

Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democrat, backed up Wednesday's assessment and funding request. "We will not rest until we get this done right, and Minnesotans should expect nothing less," he said.

Whether the Republican-controlled Legislature will buy it remains unclear, but the news hasn't been received well.

Lawmakers call it 'ransom,' 'giant goat rodeo'

"This raises the question: What have you been working on for the past several months?" Rep. Paul Torkelson, R-Hanska, who chairs the House Transportation Finance Committee, said in a statement. "Legislators have been assured repeatedly that progress was being made, but now apparently progress will cease without this $43 million ransom? This budget request makes clear the catastrophic failure by the Dayton administration to deliver a basic, functioning system, and that they lack the will or creativity to fix this problem beyond simply throwing more money at it. Minnesota taxpayers should not be forced to foot the bill to clean up this mess, and deserve better than the plan that was presented today."

State Rep. Jim Nash, R-Waconia, who serves on the House Select Committee on Technology and Responsive Government and has been critical of MNLARS in the past, said he was "just shocked that something that was supposed to be ready to go in 2017 is going to take almost a year beyond when they said it would be ready. ... This is a giant goat rodeo."

When asked whether he would vote for the additional funding, Nash responded: "I'm not sure. I won't commit to anything just yet."

Tricky politics

Every state lawmaker is up for re-election. Their constituents are angry, having been through ordeals that have led to employees quitting, businesses losing money and law-abiding citizens being unable to renew cherished personalized plates.

Dayton, who as chief executive oversees both MN.IT and the Department of Public Safety — the agencies working to operate MNLARS — isn't seeking re-election.

Dayton and his charges have been facing the same questions for months: When can you fix it and how much will it cost?

On Wednesday, the agencies and Dayton basically gave those answers to lawmakers: We need this money — pretty much now — to fix it.

But the timeline was longer and the price higher than lawmakers anticipated.

They're worried that they'll appear to be part of a notorious narrative: That government is too expensive — and too broken.

How much is needed when?

Bailey said she was unable to say how much money was needed by March 1 — just two weeks into the legislative session, a period when lawmakers are usually not voting on spending packages.

The whole $43 million isn't needed by March 1, she said. But without some unspecified chunk by then, it won't get fixed, and the department would be forced to "ramp down" its efforts, she said.

Without any new money, major problems won't be fixed until June 2020 and the whole system won't be running on all cylinders for more than four years, officials said.

Adding to the urgency: If the problems are allowed to linger, deputy registrars will be forced to deal with cumbersome workarounds at the same time they're being trained on yet another new system: the driver's license system to make Minnesota licenses compliant with federal "Real ID" security standards. The Real ID program, which is a separate software system, is being developed right now in an attempt to meet an October deadline.

Bailey said the Real ID driver's license system will meet that deadline.

Who's accountable?

Among the frustrations of Republican lawmakers: Who's accountable for all the MNLARS problems?

"Apologies are, I guess, accepted, but no one has taken responsibility," Nash said.

There has been a shake-up at MN.IT over the past several months, including bringing in Bailey to work with deputy registrars and hiring Joan Redwing, an IT manager with years of private-sector experience, as "chief enterprise architect" to lead the fixing. Paul Meekin, the former project director of MNLARS, was placed on leave last year and remained on leave Wednesday, although no specifics as to why have been forthcoming. Tom Baden, the former commissioner of MN.IT, retired for health reasons and is being replaced by Johanna Clyborne, a brigadier general of the Minnesota National Guard.

When Bailey was asked Wednesday who is being held accountable, she paused, then responded, "I can't answer that."

Timeline for fix

The funding request includes both people and technology.

For example, $6 million is needed to hire 63 workers to staff a call center so state workers can better respond to customer-service problems. On the technology side, Wednesday's road map envisions expanding computer capacity, including setting up a cloud-based system that will also create stronger disaster-recovery capabilities.

Here's the timeline laid out Wednesday by officials, who included Bailey, Redwing and Dawn Olson, director of the Department of Public Safety's Driver and Vehicle Services division, aka the "DMV."

Now through spring and summer 2018: Fix "high priority defects," including:

• Vehicle registration glitches.

• Title shortcomings and a backlog of unprocessed titles (currently about 230,000).

• Problems with specialty plates like vanity and wheelchair plates.

• A host of failures of the transaction process, ranging from an inability to correct typos to incorrect fees being charged.

• A lack of inventory of plates and tabs that license centers need for record-keeping.

Summer 2018 through fall 2018: Add a host of features that were initially envisioned to be added to the program shortly after launch but have been held back while programmers scramble to fix all the glitches.

Winter 2019 through fall 2019: Make improvements that weren't part of the original MNLARS design but have since been identified as needed to make the system a truly modern system that eclipses the 1980s-era mainframe system it's replacing.

The Pioneer Press is a Forum News Service media partner.