Office of Motor Vehicles dealing with statewide outages due to outdated system
LOUISIANA (KLFY) -- The Louisiana Office of Motor Vehicles is experiencing system outages statewide.
Dan Casey, the commissioner of the Office of Motor Vehicles spoke on how the recent power outages have affected OMV.
“It affects our operations at all of our field offices and at our partners and the public tag agents," he said. "We have driver's license, reinstatement, and vehicle registration outages throughout the day. It's due to the fact that we have a 50-year-old legacy program that runs on a main frame that has just suddenly in the last few months hit some type of issue that we haven't been able to identify.”
He added that the Office of Technology Services is currently working almost around the clock, trying to find out what the cause of these outages are. They hope to have some relief in the near future, but that relief has not been identified.
Casey said they noticed some outages over the last six to eight months on busy days like Monday and Friday afternoons. They made some adjustments, and it appeared to have helped, but in the last four to five weeks they have seen more outages on a daily basis.
“We notified OTS and they've been working side-by-side with the office of motor vehicles and because they're at the technology side of our state that runs all these big systems and again the system is 50 years old," Casey said. "It should've been replaced years ago under another administration, probably two or three administrations ago, but I'll tell you this Governor Landry The legislators, the administration, everyone is 100% behind coming up with a solution and putting a new system in place. We’re very close to completing negotiations on a contract and we hope to make an announcement and get moving on that as soon as possible.”
He said residents should continue to make the appointments. The outage seems to be affecting driver's licenses more than any other transactions. The Louisiana Office of Motor Vehicles also made a statement.
“The Office of Technology Services is actively investigating the frequent intermittent OMV system outages to resolve and stabilize the system," they said. "We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused our residents. Please be aware that OMV field office staff have no control over this issue. Our current outdated software fails to perform at the level our residents deserve. We understand that residents work hard to provide for their families and take valuable time off during the week to visit our field offices for their driver’s license and vehicle registration needs. OMV has been working with Governor Landry, his staff, state legislators, OTS, and industry leaders to acquire and deliver a new modern driver and vehicle system. We have narrowed in on a solution that will adequately handle the needs of our agency and allow us to efficiently serve the people of Louisiana. We appreciate your patience and understanding during this transition, and we will provide updates as they become available.”
As the Real ID deadline is inching closer Casey said they will be open on April 12 and May 3 from 8 a.m.-1 p.m. in Lafayette. Residents can go online and make an appointment.
“May 7 is not a super hard deadline with the TSA. The TSA is continuing to call it a deadline but they're going to phase in the actual deadline which will be the permanent or the hard stop which is supposed to be 2027 so I don't want folks to panic. I still want to promote and get the people into our offices but while we're going through this difficult time, I'm hoping that they understand that there will be a phased-in approach. TSA is going to be making an announcement in the near future from 2025 to 2027,” explained Casey.