Full Report (PDF) - Office of the Legislative Auditor

xivMOTOR VEmCLE DEPUTY REGISTRARSdistance from other deputies, because it may attract so much business that it wouldbe unfair to other deputies. To achieve a better balance between customer serviceand other objectives, we recommend that:• The Department of Public Safety should give more weight toimproving customer service in its regulation of deputy registrars.The Department of Public Safety should consider a variety of options, includingseveral that are being used or tested by other states. For example, DPS could promotemore competition in the Twin Cities metropolitan area by reducing the minimumdistance requirement for the core metropolitan area from 5 miles to 3 miles(the standard used in some other states) or by removing territorial restrictions onadvertising. Other options include making it easier for customers to use the mail,and using kiosk and phone technology. Options that the Legislature should considerinclude issuing license plate tabs at emission control test stations in the TwinCities area. This idea is being examined in Oregon and Wisconsin.DEPUTY REGISTRAR FINANCESDeputy registrars receive an administrative fee of $3.50 for motor vehicle transactions(registration renewal and titles), $3.25 for watercraft titles, and $.50 for registrationof watercraft, snowmobiles, and all-terrain vehicles. In July 1993, theadministrative fee for drivers' licenses increased from $1.00 to $3.50 per transaction.Some counties collect $.50 from the deputy for each driver's license transaction,leaving the deputy with $3.00. Since motor vehicle and driver's licensetransactions make up about 95 percent of deputy registrar transactions, the averagefee received by deputies is about $3.35.We collected financial data from a sample of 10 I deputy registrars. Althoughthese data are not definitive, we found that:• The cost per transaction varied widely among public deputies, rangingfrom $2.10 to $6.01 per transaction in 1992.Largerdeputies tendto have lowercosts pertransaction.Larger public deputy registrars tend to have lower costs than smaller deputies. Inour analysis, we treated Hennepin, Anoka, and Washington counties separately becauseeach operates three or four deputy registrars. Among single-office publicdeputies, we estimate that the average cost ranged from $4.15 per transaction forsmall public deputies to $2.76 for large single-office deputies. The multiple-officedeputies had a higher cost than other large deputies, primarily because the averagecost at Hennepin County's four service centers was about $4.84 per transaction.Hennepin County's high cost is the most notable exception to the generalizationthat larger deputies tend to have lower costs per transaction.Larger deputies tend to have a lower cost per transaction because they processmore transactions per full-time employee. Large single-office deputies processed12,200 transactions per full-time employee, about 77 percent more than the