Greetings,
This weekend marks the 75th anniversary of the United States Army transport Dorchester sinking off the coast of Greenland. In tribute to the tragedy, Minnesota flags will be flown at half-staff at all state buildings in the state of Minnesota on Saturday. Individuals, businesses, and other organizations are encouraged to join in the observance by lowering their own state flags to half-staff on Saturday.
On another subject, it is hard to put into words just how badly the rollout has gone with Minnesota’s new Minnesota Licensing and Registration system for processing vehicle title and registration transactions.
Around $100 million has been spent to build the new system and we still have little to show for it but headaches and backlogs at the DMV. Now, the Minnesota Department of Public Safety announced this week that it needs $43 million more to fix the failing system.
We were assured that MNLARS would work prior to the July 24 launch. When MNLARS faltered at the start, we were assured problems would be fixed in short order. The new system still isn’t working and taxpayers have been forced to absorb nearly $100 million for the project – approximately twice the original estimate – with another $43 million request up in the air.
Legislators met with officials from the Minnesota IT and the DPS again this week to see what needs to be done to right the ship. One big problem with this project is the state workers heading up implementation of MNLARS are seemingly being asked to accomplish something that’s outside of their skillset. We would be better off putting this task in the hands of people who have previous experience managing massive IT projects such as this, allowing Minnesota IT to put its focus back on running maintenance and security.
On that note, I am working on a bill that would require the state to conduct a request for proposal bidding process on projects exceeding $100,000. That would allow us to better consider our options at the outset instead of getting $100 million or $150 million downstream on a project only to discover we have massive issues. It also would provide us with contractual recourses for protection.
That may help us down the road but, for now, we are working in the House to protect taxpayers and hold the governor and his administration accountable for this enormous mess they’ve created.
Good luck,
Jeff