Amended MNLARS funding bill heads to governor — but without aid for deputy registrars

A bill to fund more fixes to Minnesota’s troubled driver’s license and registration system is on its way to Gov. Tim Walz for his signature.

But the bill re-passed Monday evening in the House is missing a key provision it contained when it left the House Floor for the Senate late last week — $10 million in aid for the local deputy registrar offices impacted by the botched rollout of the system, known as MNLARS.

That piece of the legislation was amended out of the bill when the Senate — where Sen. Scott Newman (R-Hutchinson) was the sponsor — amended its own language onto HF861 earlier in the day before passing the bill by a vote of 52-12.

Sponsored by Rep. Rick Hansen (DFL-South St. Paul), the amended bill would still provide $11.2 million for additional fixes to MNLARS. It would also appropriate $2 million for temporary additional Driver and Vehicle Services staffing through June 30.

The House re-passed the amended bill 71-50. 

House Republicans decried the absence in the amended bill of aid to deputy registrars, the roughly 170 local DMV offices across the state that took a financial hit dealing with the malfunctioning system.

“These people have suffered greatly,” said Rep. Paul Torkelson (R-Hanska), who moved that the House reject the Senate’s changes and send the bill to a conference committee. “They’ve had to spend more time, more money, and they’ve been unable to help the folks they’re supposed to help and want to help.”

Hansen said the amended bill still helped registrars by funding continued work to make MNLARS fully functional. And House Majority Leader Ryan Winkler (DFL-Golden Valley) said that the original bill wouldn’t have appropriated the aid until June 30, leaving plenty of time for lawmakers to pass a new bill targeted toward the registrars before the end of the session in May.

“We can keep the system functioning, we can keep deputy registrars going and we can make them whole yet this session,” Winkler said.