DMV, AAA at impasse over license renewals for public
The Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles and one of the state’s two AAA franchises have reached an impasse on efforts to reach a new contract to allow the automotive club to continue providing license renewals and issuing identification cards for the agency.
The existing contract between the DMV and AAA Northeast, which operates offices in Fairfield and New Haven counties, expires at the end of the month. But in a move that surprised AAA officials, DMV Commissioner Michael Bzdyra announced that the contract talks had reached an impasse.
“The Department’s responsibility is first and foremost to the general public,” Bzdyra said in a statement. “We need to maintain service levels while controlling costs. As such, we cannot subsidize a private organization’s provision of DMV services if that organization is not willing to find ways to serve the general public.”
Under the current contract, AAA Northeast offices provide licensing renewals to both its own members as well as members of the general public. But if the impasse remains and no new contract is reached, not even AAA Northeast members will be able to avail themselves of those particular services in the organization’s office, said William Seymour, a DMV spokesman.
AAA Northeast issued a statement Tuesday in which organization officials said they remain “committed to working with state officials to extend the DMV program in AAA offices into 2017 and well-beyond.” The statement was issued after Fran Mayko, a spokeswoman for AAA Northeast, told the New Haven Register that the organization “was blindsided by the DMV’s announcement.”
“AAA has shouldered labor and other costs related to the program, which approach $1 million annually, since its inception in 2001,” the statement issued by Mayko said, in part. “We remain willing to reimburse the state for an equitable portion of the additional expenses necessary to make the program work, though to date, those additional expenses have been somewhat of a moving target. In the end, we view the partnership as a mutually beneficial 15-year relationship which provides a highly-valued service to AAA members and shortens lines at state DMV offices.”
Seymour challenged Mayko’s claim that AAA Northeast officials were blindsided by the DMV’s announcement,
“Today shortly after 10 a.m. AAA executives told the state it made its last and best offer,” he said. “The state’s position is that it can not take less than the full amount of the cost the state pays for AAA Northeast to provide the current services.”
Bzdyra didn’t close the door on reaching a new agreement with the DMV, but added the agency “will begin exploring other avenues to maintain access to services for the people of Connecticut,”
“We hope this AAA franchise will reconsider our proposals, which we feel were fair and workable,” he said. Seymour, the DMV spokesman, declined to comment on what avenues the agency might be exploring concerning selecting another entity to perform the services now being provided to the DMV.
Seymour said AAA Northeast told DMV officials earlier this fall that once its current contract with the agency expired, the automotive club wanted to only offer those services to its paying members beginning in January.
The DMV in October served AAA Northeast with a notice of default after it abruptly stopped serving members of the general public in violation of a contract with DMV. That also kicked off the current round of negotiations that DMV claims is at an impasse.
Mayko said the organization “is very disappointed” in the DMV’s action.
“We are willing to negotiate, but at this point, it’s only going one way,” Mayko said.
Mayko said AAA Northeast thought it had an agreement with the DMV to pay a certain amount of money to purchase the equipment that would be necessary to process registration renewals.
“We’re talking a significant amount of money here and that’s on top of the costs that we already have in place,” she said. “In return, we would offer to do it for non-members, but only if they purchased a membership, which we would have offered at a significant discount. We’ve always liked the idea of providing some DMV services because it brought people into our offices and we could then try to sell them other products.”
Seymour said DMV officials can’t “put citizens in the position of being compelled to join AAA in order to obtain state services.” Furthermore, he said the agency is not prepared to put registration renewal into an AAA office at this time, “but would consider AAA when the time arrived.”
“We need more time for working out the bugs in our new registration system,” Seymour said.
Mayko said state negotiators kept changing the amount that they wanted AAA Northeast to pay, a claim Seymour denies. AAA Northeast’s request “amounts to taking away the ability of consumers to have access to state services,” he said. “AAA wanted a members-only plan, which denies access to a large segment of the state population,” Seymour said. “It was repeated several times by several (AAA Northeast) executives in every session that unless it has a members-only plan, all services would stop on January 1.”
The state was clear, he said, that AAA Northeast needed to fully reimburse the taxpayers for all costs associated with a members-only plan. AAA did not want to accept that premise or fully reimburse taxpayers, Seymour said.
“The total cost for reimbursement to taxpayers is $340,000 annually, and that includes equipment, data lines and costs, and state personnel dedicated to serving AAA Northeast,” he said.
Seymour said the impasse between the DMV and AAA Northeast will not impact members of the state’s other AAA franchise.
The rest of Connecticut is served by AAA Club Alliance, with local headquarters in West Hartford, said Karen Christiana, general manager of that franchise. It will continue to provide services to all members of the general public throughout its eight offices around the state, including one in Old Saybrook, Christiana said.
One possible option for AAA Northeast members if the impasse with the DMV continues is to go to AAA Alliance locations to get licenses renewed or get identification cards. The organization has reciprocal arrangements with other franchises all over the country to provide a full menu of services.
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