Legislation to move driver’s license renewals back to local county governments is receiving priority status in the Kentucky Senate, where the Republican supermajority says the change is needed to address public frustration with wait times at regional offices run by the state.
Senate Bill 7, filed Tuesday by GOP Sen. Aaron Reed of Shelbyville, would allow local county offices to take over driver’s license renewals and duplicates in counties where the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet does not currently have a regional office providing those services.
The bill is already co-sponsored by 28 of the chamber’s 38 senators and is set to receive a Senate committee hearing Wednesday morning.
After filing SB 7, Reed called his bill “the answer to the outcry of Kentuckians from across the state, people who are sick and tired of long drives, long lines in a broken system.”
“We're bringing driver's license renewals back to county, local control,” Reed said. “Your local elected officials will have access and be able to do this. It's the officials who you've already elected, who you honor, who you trust.”
A law passed in 2020 shifted all driver licensing and state ID services from counties’ circuit court clerk offices to the Transportation Cabinet, spurred by the implementation of mandatory REAL IDs that required more capabilities to issue the federal identification.
After many delays, REAL IDs became mandatory for air travel last May, with the cabinet setting up 34 regional offices around the state. However, many criticized the new regional system for requiring long drives for people without a regional office in their counties, as well as long wait times for those needing services.
The new bill would require the cabinet to enter agreements with local government offices who choose to take on the services — including circuit clerks, county clerks, county sheriffs and county judge-executives — and to purchase and install necessary equipment for those offices. Counties would also be allowed to enter agreements with nearby counties to provide services for each others’ residents and share licensing equipment and facilities.
While the local offices would be able to renew licenses, those seeking new driver's licenses would still have to acquire them from regional offices run by the state.
Asked about the legislation, Transportation Cabinet spokesperson Naitore Djigbenou wrote in an email that the agency has dramatically reduced wait times by implementing changes over the past year, including a new Louisville office, the hiring of 125 additional staff, a new line managements check in systems and having Saturday hours once a month.
Djigbenou cited statistics to highlight the improvements, as the average wait times for walk-in customers and scheduled appointments has fallen from more than 49 minutes last April to just 11 minutes last month.
“We remain committed to enhancing services and ensuring consistency and compliance across the 35 regional offices we operate,” Djigbenou wrote, noting that Gov. Andy Beshear appointed a deputy secretary in the cabinet last week whose main focus will be improving services at the regional offices.
Montgomery Circuit Clerk Tanya Terry, who is the president of the Kentucky Association of Circuit Court Clerks, said she was surprised by the filing of the bill, as they had a meeting scheduled with Reed later this month to discuss potential legislation on licensing offices.
Terry said the circuit clerks would do whatever legislators feel is best to serve Kentuckians, but feared that Reed’s bill would create burdensome costs for local offices and confusion for those seeking services.
“We will try to do whatever we need to do, but we do feel like it would be a heavy burden and very confusing, under this bill,” Terry said.
A spokesperson for the Kentucky Association of Counties did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Reed’s bill.
Reed’s press release for SB 7 also highlighted reporting that raised concerns about the improper issuance of licensing at one of the regional offices in Louisville last year. A former worker at the office alleged in a whistleblower lawsuit that she was fired for reporting that co-workers illegally took bribes to issue licenses to people who were not eligible to receive them, including undocumented immigrants.
The office of Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman is still investigating the allegations about the regional office in Louisville.
Kentucky Public Radio submitted an open records request to the Transportation Cabinet last August requesting all documents and correspondence related to the whistleblower’s allegations. The cabinet denied that request in October, saying that it was overly burdensome and would require up to 41,000 work hours to fulfill — which would amount to roughly 20 years, accounting for 8-hour workdays and holidays.
KPR Reporter Sylvia Goodman contributed to this story.
