DMV will offer alternatives to renewals by next April

Motorists will soon be able to use the Internet or the phone to renew drivers' licenses and get car registrations taken care automatically when they get a smog check.

Ginny Lewis of the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles said the goal is to offer those services by April if the Interim Finance Committee approves the money today.

Lewis told a legislative subcommittee the $600,000 needed to build the Internet and telephone systems for both drivers' license and registration renewals is already in DMV's budget. She said she will ask IFC to release $290,000 in next year's budget to get the smog stations on line handling registration renewals.

Those stations are already hooked electronically to DMV with their smog-check computers.

Although smog checks are only required in Clark and Washoe counties, Lewis pointed out they account for 90 percent of vehicle registrations.

More likely to draw tough questions from IFC is the department's request for $500,000 more to Deloitte & Touche Technology, the consultant that developed the controversial Genesis computer.

Lewis said that will extend the company's contract through next June to provide support designed to make sure the final bugs are worked out and the state can handle and maintain Genesis itself.

Lewis presented the information to the IFC subcommittee on Genesis headed by Assemblyman Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, on Tuesday. He and other members including Vonne Chowning, D-Las Vegas, agreed Genesis has made a lot of progress over the past month and that they are getting far fewer complaints.

Lewis said the lines have gone down significantly in many areas and, although they are still two hours in some parts of Las Vegas, they are dropping continually.

And she said backroom work has caught up enough that, this week, DMV is mailing out the first batch of insurance verification letters to Nevada drivers since the system went on line Sept. 7.

After months of working with insurance companies on the lists of who is and isn't insured, she said, "we're pretty confident these are people who actually don't have insurance."

Those who get the letters have just a matter of days to prove to DMV they have insurance or lose their vehicle registration and pay a fine.

Beers said Project Genesis is budgeted for $26 million and projected to cost a total of $33.6 million when completed. But he said DMV has actually spent just $14 million on the system so far. He said that is far less than the $35 million estimates that have been reported at different times.

He is expected to report verbally on the status of Genesis to other members of IFC today as they consider the request for funds to add smog-station renewals and extend the programmer's contract.