Senator Boucher Statement on the Resignation of Commissioner Ayala

State Senator Toni Boucher, Ranking Member of the Connecticut General Assembly’s Transportation Committee, on the resignation of Commissioner Ayala,

This is indeed a sad day for the beleaguered DMV, their employees and their customers who continue to endure a series of problems:

• Tripling wait times.
• 3 months to schedule a driver’s test.
• Cars getting unregistered due to backlog.
• Cars getting unregistered due to tax communication errors.
• Vehicles held hostage for fees due to errors.
• Private insurance agents are being blamed for DMV failures.
• The DMV even predicted more issues with re-registering vehicles that have been unregistered for a period of time.
• Hours and sometimes days of residents’ time away from their jobs to fix these issues

It is also a sad day for the Commissioner, who tried his best and was a good state senator, but was new to this area of government.

Unfortunately, the loss of leadership at the top of this organization could not have come at a worse time. The software system implementation that the CT DMV has embarked on is incomplete and the issues it has caused remain unresolved.

This is, however, an opportunity for the Governor’s office to conduct a search for individuals with the proper knowledge of the technical requirements necessary to bring the CT DMV into the 21st century. A person in this vital position, that affects all our lives, should have the background and experience to effectively run an organization as large, important, and customer focused as the CT DMV.

Rather than make a purely political appointment, the Administration should do a nationwide search to find a Commissioner that will be able to resolve the troubling issues currently plaguing the CT DMV.