No emergency funds for MNLARS, threatening progress on struggling system

The state’s new vehicle and registration system has been a mess for months, causing headaches for the auto dealers, deputy registrars and vehicle owners who depend on it.

Now, fixes to the floundering system, called MNLARS, appear set to grind to a halt. The House on Thursday voted down a motion that would have prompted an emergency vote on the allocation of $10 million in existing funds for remedying the beleaguered computer system.

Without that money by the end of the workday Thursday, state officials told lawmakers earlier this week, they’ll be forced to send layoff notices to the state staff and contractors working on the project.

Rep. Paul Torkelson (R-Hanska), the chair of the House Transportation Finance Committee, had expressed skepticism at handing over additional funding to MN.IT and the Department of Public Safety for a MNLARS project he called “a disaster” and that has already cost the state upwards of $90 million.

“We need to put more pressure on [these] agenc[ies],” he said on the House Floor. “We need to put more pressure on this governor to get this thing going.”

Even if the House had voted to take up the funding bill — HF3272, sponsored by Rep. Rick Hansen (DFL-South St. Paul) — it would have had little effect; the Senate had already adjourned for the week.

WATCH House Floor debate on the motion to suspend the rules

There is no Senate companion for the bill.

Torkelson has introduced his own bill, HF3147, which would direct executive branch agencies to reduce General Fund appropriations by $10 million before allocating the $10 million toward the project.  There is also no Senate companion for that bill.

“We know there have been problems with MNLARS,” Hansen said. “But there are people who are working to fix that.”

State officials have recently admitted the system was not read to go live when it rolled out to the public in July of last year. That has placed a huge burden on users like deputy registrars — the local offices that process things like vehicle title transfers and license tab renewals — putting some on the brink of closure, lawmakers heard in testimony before the transportation finance committee on Tuesday.

READ MORE State officials seek more funding for malfunctioning MNLARS, but transportation chair unimpressed

New MN.IT Commissioner Johanna Clyborne acknowledged the system’s defects and disastrous rollout during that hearing. But, she told legislators, not getting the $10 million in funding — part of a larger $43 million supplementary request — by Thursday would “have a crippling effect on the progress we are making.”

House DFLers pushed to appropriate the emergency funding on Thursday, saying it’s time to look forward at how to bring the system up-to-speed rather than continuing to look back at the many errors that have hobbled it.

Republicans, however, countered that lawmakers haven’t been given enough information on how the $10 million request would be used. The blame for the MNLARS disaster, Torkelson said, continues to fall squarely on DFL Gov. Mark Dayton’s shoulders.

“After this vote,” Hansen said, “it’s yours.”