The agency announced June 27 that 69 field offices from El Centro to Eureka will open one hour earlier, at 7 a.m. weekdays except Wednesdays. The expanded hours, which began Monday, were intended “to provide additional service hours and channels for customers as we ramp up for the anticipated influx of Real ID customers,” DMV spokesman Jaime Garza told Techwire via email. Other takeaways include:
• DMV isn’t adding staff during that extra hour. Rather, it will staff the additional hour “with current resources, including those supported by Real ID funding received by the department,” Garza said.
The agency’s portion of the state’s new budget, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed June 27, rose 17 percent to $1.36 billion, an increase of more than $242 million. That included $6 million to stand up new identity management application software to let residents remotely upload and verify documents to apply for Real ID. The identification card is required to fly domestically without a passport after Oct. 1, 2020.
• Following the success in April of a pop-up DMV field office pilot at Health Net offices in Rancho Cordova, DMV’s plans to replicate that event have become clearer. The department will target the top 100 companies in the state, especially those with a mobile workforce.
“I want to make it clear that the pop-up events are strategic in nature; the DMV is targeting the top 100 companies with large teams that travel often,” Garza said. The Rancho Cordova pop-up served 78 people.
• The agency is promoting what Garza termed “alternate service delivery options.” These include its online services and DMV Now self-serve kiosks around the state. On June 26, DMV began adding 200 new kiosks, funded by $8.3 million from the state budget, as part of an existing contract.
When complete by year’s end, the installation will bring the total number of kiosks to 363. A redesign of the department website is underway.
• DMV is continuing to drive awareness of the need for Real ID through its Speakers bureau, which dispatches speakers to groups of at least 40; and its Senior Driver Ombudsman program, which educates older drivers. The agency has also placed information-only tables and booths at airports in Fresno, Los Angeles, Ontario and San Francisco, to inform residents on changes and updates to the Real ID rollout.
