OK Tag Agencies are Changing

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sh00ter

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Let's not forget the all important goal of multicultural diversity in all govt entities. Look at how well that's worked in the public school system.
I know someone who told me that their agency has mandatory training that includes EQUITY. Stitt has no idea this is going on under his watch. Equity promotes the idea of elevating one group at the expense of another, it is not the same as "equality". We are in one of the reddest states...Republicans on average are just as bad guys, let's face it.
That in bold letters:

Let me add to the concern. Service Oklahoma is a new branch of the Office of Management and Enterprise Services. That OMES (wife pronounces it oh-mess) is the agency that came about when the state decided to consolidate the IT divisions of all the agencies into one agency instead of each agency having their own It divisions.

In honesty, the consolidation didn't really work well, and with the screw-up of purchasing through them and "State Finance," the wife decided to retire early. She had initially told her boss that she would stay until she was 65, but "they" messed up the process of bidding and purchasing to the point that she couldn't get anything done efficiently, so she retired at 62. (Her boss went from the OSBI to be the head over the state law enforcement agencies at OMES, so she became the "interim" OSBI director of IT.)

Now, with all that said, OMES is largely loaded with IT people, so time will tell whether they can do a better job of maintaining the computer systems for the licensing and tag agency system than what the DMV and Oklahoma Tax Commission did.

EDIT: The company taking some of the work from the state is NTT Data near Sara Road and W. Reno. If I remember right, they have taken over the technical support for laptops and desktops for the state.
On another note, OMES also farmed out some services for the state to a non state company. (At the moment, the name of that company escapes my memory, but it is in a building out near West Reno near either Morgan Road or Sara Road. Some years back that building was started by a fiber optic company that quit the building when it was still just a skeleton of a building, and this new company took up the property and finished the building and moved in.
Per my contact above, apparently it is all of that you said and gotten worse. A bunch of millennials attending meetings with their Starbucks mugs but not producing an actual product (like in the office space movie). All the good folks left or retired and now it is a high-turnover bureaucracy that likes to outsource things to the "private sector" and just acts as a middle man and marks up the cost for the other agencies to then justify & fund their own existence.

That law would have been a great idea if OMES was a smaller agency mainly focused on consolidated purchasing to save cost, and perhaps a small IT shop to serve smaller agencies that didn't have the staff to do things themselves. Based on what I've been told, they are not saving money and their claims of this is at least partially smoke & mirrors at best.

People supposedly against big government and centralization of power have created a giant, inefficient bureaucracy that's net effect is funneling money to their corporate buddies. This was a Fallin thing and her cohorts in the legislature. I was even told one of the original authors of the bill to create OMES went on to run some agency and was all mad about the service he was getting and got a bunch of special exceptions for his agency outside of what other agencies have to accept and deal with.
 
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Snattlerake

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That in bold letters:

Let me add to the concern. Service Oklahoma is a new branch of the Office of Management and Enterprise Services. That OMES (wife pronounces it oh-mess) is the agency that came about when the state decided to consolidate the IT divisions of all the agencies into one agency instead of each agency having their own It divisions.

In honesty, the consolidation didn't really work well, and with the screw-up of purchasing through them and "State Finance," the wife decided to retire early. She had initially told her boss that she would stay until she was 65, but "they" messed up the process of bidding and purchasing to the point that she couldn't get anything done efficiently, so she retired at 62. (Her boss went from the OSBI to be the head over the state law enforcement agencies at OMES, so she became the "interim" OSBI director of IT.)

Now, with all that said, OMES is largely loaded with IT people, so time will tell whether they can do a better job of maintaining the computer systems for the licensing and tag agency system than what the DMV and Oklahoma Tax Commission did.

EDIT: The company taking some of the work from the state is NTT Data near Sara Road and W. Reno. If I remember right, they have taken over the technical support for laptops and desktops for the state.
On another note, OMES also farmed out some services for the state to a non state company. (At the moment, the name of that company escapes my memory, but it is in a building out near West Reno near either Morgan Road or Sara Road. Some years back that building was started by a fiber optic company that quit the building when it was still just a skeleton of a building, and this new company took up the property and finished the building and moved in.
Corning Glass.

It reminded me of the place in NE Tulsa on Tiger Switch Road that was going to manufacture railroad wheels at the new foundry they were building. It was s just a shell with no concrete floors and my company, was chosen to install beam detectors to protect the buildings after they decided to shelve the project. We told them to harden the phone lines by digging them underground several times but they didn't. We installed a cell backup unit if the phone lines were cut but after a few years they quit paying the bills for monitoring and they got hit by copper thieves to the tune of $100,000 in damages.
 
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SoonerP226

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Service Oklahoma is a new branch of the Office of Management and Enterprise Services. That OMES (wife pronounces it oh-mess) is the agency that came about when the state decided to consolidate the IT divisions of all the agencies into one agency instead of each agency having their own It divisions.
That was actually my first guess as to who owned that mess. I wouldn’t touch OMES with a ten foot pole. Those suckers at the Office of State Finance are empire builders like you’ve never seen.

It was bad enough when we had to turn in those fictitious budget and inventory forms to them. I can’t imagine actually having to report to them.
 

TerryMiller

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That was actually my first guess as to who owned that mess. I wouldn’t touch OMES with a ten foot pole. Those suckers at the Office of State Finance are empire builders like you’ve never seen.

It was bad enough when we had to turn in those fictitious budget and inventory forms to them. I can’t imagine actually having to report to them.

I visited with my wife regarding OMES and learned that it has been building as a "super - agency." In addition to what I spoke of with regards to the IT consolidation, apparently the Office of Personnel Management and State Finance are all under that "super-umbrella." Who knows, there may be even more under that umbrella.

When things got to where it would take the wife a year to get replacement computer equipment for the OSBI, she decided that the headaches weren't worth waiting until 65 to retire, so she retired at 62. Right after retirement, we began our traveling to Colorado for 20 months, Oregon for 17 months, and then Utah for 9 months. She has said multiple times that the stress level for her dropped to zero very soon after retirement.
 

TerryMiller

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Corning Glass.

It reminded me of the place in NE Tulsa on Tiger Switch Road that was going to manufacture railroad wheels at the new foundry they were building. It was s just a shell with no concrete floors and my company, was chosen to install beam detectors to protect the buildings after they decided to shelve the project. We told them to harden the phone lines by digging them underground several times but they didn't. We installed a cell backup unit if the phone lines were cut but after a few years they quit paying the bills for monitoring and they got hit by copper thieves to the tune of $100,000 in damages.

Yeppers. That was Corning that started that building.

Sometimes it sucks having a 76 year old brain. It must be true that as one gets older and learns new things, older things leak out.
 
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Sounds like another jacked up state take over plan. The state recently went to a new HR system called Work Day. It took over a year to go live and we had training on how to in put leave and whatnot before it was implemented. Once it went live, the way information was imputed changed completely. The system automatically lists your work hours and you can’t change them until after you take your leave. Changing them can crash the system and hold up the 82 steps it takes to process payroll. We can only log into the system about only one week a month only after payroll has been processed otherwise it crashes the system.
 

Podman

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The tag agency here in Claremore sucks. I used to go to Catoosa but it closed. So now I
go to Oolagah tag agency. They were good at getting my real id etc. So I will use them
from now on. They take walk-ins and you don't need appointment like some tag agencies.
 
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OKLAHOMA CITY — Many of Oklahoma’s tag agencies will have a new look by he end of 2022 after lawmakers recently approved an overhaul of the system that handles the issuance of driver’s licenses and motor vehicle registrations and titles.

In a bid to improve access to driver’s licenses, reduce long lines at tag agencies and increase consistency and customer service, all tag agents who wish to remain in business will be required to franchise their current locations under the Service Oklahoma name and become “licensed operators,” said state Sen. Chuck Hall, R-Perry.

All licensed operators must offer every service required by Service Oklahoma, meet a customer satisfaction matrix and remain open a set number of hours.


House Bill 3419 creates the model that merges the licensing and motor vehicle services currently performed by the Department of Public Safety and Oklahoma Tax Commission into one division. Driver’s license oversight will switch to Service Oklahoma starting Nov. 1, and motor vehicle services follow beginning Jan. 1.

The vision over the next few years is to add additional services to all Service Oklahoma locations, including the ability to purchase turnpike passes and state records, including birth and death certificates.

“You shouldn’t have to drive to Oklahoma City to get those services,” Hall said. “You ought to be able to get it at a licensed operator for Service Oklahoma right there in the district,” he said.

Hall said the past few years have created a perfect storm of inefficiencies, noting the existing tag agent system was squeezed by the federally mandated Real ID roll out, COVID-19-related closures and budget cuts.

“We also discovered that the expectations of Oklahomans for that delivery system were rising, so we saw an opportunity to drive efficiencies and ensure, hopefully, some long-term economic viability of tag agents,” Hall said.

State law requires at least one licensed operator in every Oklahoma county, Hall said.

Tag agents who refuse to franchise have the option to continue as licensed motor agents through December 2025. At that point, they’ll have to give up their license or convert to a licensed operator, Hall said. In exchange for franchising, licensed operators will be able to sell their businesses at fair market prices or back to Service Oklahoma at a statutorily-set fee. Currently, the Tax Commission decides who takes over a business when a tag agent retires and at what price, Hall said.

He believes over 90% of current tag agents will convert to the licensed operator model.


Regional DPS locations will be transformed into Service Oklahoma shops and continue to offer driving tests and licenses.

Service Oklahoma locations will also offer limited appointment scheduling, but plan to transition their services to mostly walk-ins. Hall said Service Oklahoma will not allow its licensed operators to charge for appointments like some current tag agents do.

“We were all shocked that they could charge an appointment fee,” Hall said. “That was never the intent of the Legislature, to create an environment where citizens were charged to get a service from the state through an appointment.”

Kate Vesper, a spokeswoman for Gov. Kevin Stitt, said the governor found it unacceptable that basic state services that should have taken minutes were taking days or even months.

“Gov. Stitt launched Service Oklahoma to fulfill a critical need and to raise the standard for how the state served Oklahomans,” she said. “The improvements in access to driver’s license and vehicle registration are just the beginning for how the state plans to provide best-in-class customer services.”

State Rep. Dell Kerbs, R-Shawnee, the House author, said the ultimate goal is to ensure there’s a better service for both tag agents and consumers.

He said one advantage to the new system is that it won’t allow tag agents to pick and choose what services to offer anymore. He said there are between 30 and 40 tag agencies that don’t offer driver’s license services.

Kerbs said some Oklahomans have to travel to Oklahoma City to complete their business. Legislators believe the new plan will make it easier for constituents to access services in their local communities.

“The first step is customer service, being able to get this and start getting these products and processes done faster,” Kerbs said.

 

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