West Virginia Division of Motor Vehicles Story Archives

Digital Documents, Tourism School Announced By Justice Administration

The West Virginia Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) is expanding its digital services with documents on motorist’s phones and the governor is opening a training program for tourism jobs for high school students.

The West Virginia Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) is expanding its digital services with documents on motorist’s phones.

West Virginians renewing their registration online can now get a digital registration card stored in their smartphone wallet as part of the digital services and “Skip the Trip” initiative.

DMV Commissioner Everett Frazier joined Gov. Jim Justice during his regular briefing Wednesday, Jan. 24, to announce the new digital service as part of “an ongoing commitment to modernization.” Frazier also announced that this spring, West Virginia plans to join a growing number of states offering digital identification on mobile phones.

“These free services offers immediate access to vehicle information eliminating … the need of rummaging through your glove compartment or your center console there,” he said.

Frazier said the mobile ID will allow secure and easy identification at participating businesses and government agencies, but he advised motorists to keep the physical copies of their documents on hand when possible, especially when traveling out of state.

“Some states may not recognize it,” he said. “But for your security and stuff we’re going to continue to offer everything the same way we do it but this is gonna be in addition to.”

Senate President Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, also joined the briefing to praise the department’s work to help move the state into the 21st century.

“I can’t wait for the day whenever I can hold my phone up to the license plate, renew the tags and not have to take the time to go to the DMV,” he said.

Training For Tourism

Justice was also joined by Tourism Secretary Chelsea Ruby to announce the applications for the Governor’s School for Tourism are now open.

“That’s starting this summer,” Justice said. “You know with tourism booming in our state and getting better and better and better, we need to train people, because these jobs, these jobs are great jobs, and they’re great paying jobs and everything.”

Ruby said the state is experiencing an explosion in tourism and in tourism jobs, with projections showing as many as 21,000 annual job openings in the next four years in the tourism industry.

“But what we’re running into is that our growth in the tourism industry is happening faster than we’re building that workforce,” she said.

The 10 day program designed for 9th and 10th graders will allow students to meet with people in various jobs in the tourism industry ranging from outdoor recreation, arts and culture to hospitality and lodging and culinary arts.

“They will visit every corner of the state, they will go to all of our travel regions,” Ruby said. “They’ll go to two national parks, a number of state parks … They’re going to really get a taste of what those jobs in West Virginia are like.”

In a press release after the briefing, Justice’s administration said the School for Tourism will accept one freshman or sophomore student from each county, as well as one student from each of the state’s five charter schools and a student from the West Virginia Schools for the Deaf and the Blind.

15 Days Done

With 15 days completed, the 60-day legislative session is now one quarter of the way through.

Later in the briefing, Justice was asked for his opinion on the legislation’s activity so far, specifically the trend to focus on bills that appeal to conservatives.

“As stuff goes through the process, you know, it’s got to go through the House, it’s got to go through the Senate,” he said. “Wherever it originates a lot of different bells and whistles have to happen and everything before it comes to me. To pre-judge on my part, you know, before it gets to me. I mean, that’s really not very fair.”

Justice continued on to say that he believed God has a place in the state’s schools, and that students – the state’s top resource – need to be protected.

“Those kids are our resource and our gift, and so we should protect them with all in us,” he said. “I’m not going to pre-judge anything until I see it, so we’ll wait till it gets to me.”

Justice was also asked to defend his budget and tax cut proposals after public criticism.

“I really think what you’ve got is a very liberal group that I hope to goodness that they’re bright enough to be able to understand, and say your truth, but without a question, it adds up,” he said. “The math works, that’s all there is to it, you know, and from the standpoint of tax cuts, yeah, I want tax cuts. We’ve got it 23 times since I walked in the door … Why in the world would I do something at the eleventh hour, you know, on and my parting note and do something to mess up all the good stuff that we’ve already done?”

W.Va. To Offer Digital Vehicle Titles

This fall, the West Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) will be able to provide out-of-state businesses with a fully-digital clearinghouse for vehicle titles.

Gov. Jim Justice signed House Bill 2506 which allows West Virginia licensed non-resident businesses to transfer existing out-of-state titles into a West Virginia title in their name, even when the vehicle is located in another jurisdiction.

“I am excited about this initiative, which will bring millions of dollars to the state of West Virginia and position us as a leader in innovation, as we have been so many times before,” Justice said. “I’m proud that West Virginia is the first state that’s setting the template for others to follow. My thanks go out to the legislature and to all those involved at the DMV for making this a reality.”

The legislation’s passage takes advantage of the advanced title and registration system that the DMV enabled in 2022.

“These advancements through our team at DMV have enabled West Virginia to be the first state in the country to offer fully digital vehicle services to businesses and consumers and will culminate in the introduction of the first fully digital vehicle title,” DMV Commissioner Everett Frazier said.

Tentatively, the DMV will begin offering digital title clearinghouse services by fall 2023. To prepare, the department made advancements to their processing systems including vehicle titling, registration and lien processing systems.

West Virginia’s Digital Title and Registration System expedites the title turnaround process from 45 days to less than one day.

Qualifying businesses will now be able to submit title transfer requests in a fully digital and secure way without the need for notarization or wet signatures on any title transfer documents.

W.Va. Not Giving Road Skills Tests At Logan Office For Now

The West Virginia Division of Motor Vehicles is not giving road skills tests at the regional office in Logan until further notice, the agency said.

The Logan office is not giving the tests due to a COVID-related staffing shortage, the DMV said in a news release Monday.

Other business transactions and knowledge testing will continue as normal.

Driver’s license skills testing is available at other regional offices in the area, including Kanawha City, Huntington, Beckley, Winfield and Williamson.

More information is available at the DMV website at dmv.wv.gov.

W.Va. Officials Think Voter Registration Problems are Fixed

West Virginia officials say they believe problems with voter registrations have been fixed.

The Register-Herald reports Donald Kersey, who is general counsel for Secretary of State Mac Warner’s office, has said dozens of people reported during the 2018 election that they thought they had registered locally but the state hadn’t received their paperwork.

Officials at the West Virginia Division of Motor Vehicles said this month that they believe a programming change in January fixed the problem.

Acting DMV commissioner Adam Holley said in an email that state officials have completed two rounds of testing that found no problems.

Kersey said he also believes the problem is fixed, but was waiting for a final confirmation.

Subcommittee Reaches Compromise on Voter ID Bill

A House Judiciary Subcommittee reconsidered a bill Thursday that barely made it through the legislative process on the final night of the 2016 session.

That bill required West Virginians to bring some form of identification with them when they go to cast a ballot at their polling place. It also set up an automatic voter registration process between the Secretary of the State’s office and the Division of Motor Vehicles.

Delegates initially intended to gut parts of that law altogether this year, but have since worked on a compromise.

As introduced, House Bill 2781 got rid of the automatic voter registration system altogether and removed a large number of the allowable forms of ID, including a health insurance card, birth certificate, and several others. Those two provisions were pushed by Democratic members of the Legislature during the 2016 session.

Thursday morning, a House Judiciary subcommittee, led by Republican Delegate Mark Zatezelo of Hancock County, met to negotiate the bill’s provisions. The subcommittee’s version of the bill puts all of the ID options back in, and it also reinstates the required automatic voter registration system.

Zatezelo says, however, their bill pushes back the effective date one full year.

“We want to make sure the DMV is ready for July 1, 2019,” Zatezelo noted, “And so, we will put into this bill [a] proviso that they be ready with their new software by July 1, 2018. That gives them a year to work all the bugs out and do that type of thing; we feel it’s fair.”

Zatezelo also says the bill makes it clear that if someone doesn’t want to register to vote when they go to the DMV, their information won’t automatically be sent to the Secretary of State’s office.

The single Democrat on the Judiciary subcommittee is Delegate Chad Lovejoy of Cabell County. He says he’s very pleased with the compromised version of the bill.

“I think the bill has been greatly enhanced by the work of the subcommittee,” Lovejoy said, “You know, as we approached it, there were two kind of major concerns with bringing it back up. One was changing the IDs, the list of IDs that were negotiated last year as part of the legislation, and the second, were, what could be perceived as attempts to roll back the automatic voter registration.”

Lovejoy says he anticipates wide support from his party when this bill comes to the floor. House Bill 2781 will now go before the full Judiciary committee for further consideration.

Justice to Keep Current Motor Vehicles Commissioner

West Virginia Gov.-elect Jim Justice says the current commissioner of the state Division of Motor Vehicles will continue in his administration.

Pat Reed was first appointed to the post by Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin in January 2015.

She was previously deputy commissioner in the West Virginia Office of the Insurance Commissioner and ran a real estate and insurance agency before that.

She also was in the state House of Delegates and on the Raleigh County Commission.

Justice says she led the effort to expand DMV’s online services and will lead the rollout of self-service kiosks across the state for vehicle registration and driver’s license renewals.