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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, AUGUST 3, 2015
Under specter of Cover Oregon, DMV begins major upgrade
New online system could reduce
customer visits to 'MV of¿ces
By PETER WONG
Capital Bureau
SALEM — State govern-
ment’s most recent failure in infor-
mation technology hangs over it,
but prompted by aging driver and
motor vehicle systems that date
back to the 1960s, Oregon law-
makers have launched an upgrade
that will take a decade to complete.
Although the “service trans-
formation” program will not
change anything immediately,
online transactions by custom-
ers with the Driver and Motor
Vehicle Services Division are
expected to multiply in a couple
of years with the opening phase
of DMV2U.
The DMV will still have ¿eld
of¿ces — it has 60 now — but
the new online system will re-
duce customer visits for many
routine transactions.
The new system also will
provide quicker access to DMV
records by business customers
— ¿nancial institutions, insur-
ance companies and vehicle
dealers — and police and courts.
But Matt Garrett, director
of the Oregon Department of
Transportation — the DMV’s
parent agency — said he is
aware of the public and legisla-
tive focus on a project that will
affect millions of Oregonians.
“A lot is riding on this,” Gar-
rett said at a recent meeting of
the Oregon Transportation Com-
mission. “The gravity of this
is not lost to anyone here. The
shadow of Cover Oregon hangs
upon us.”
Oregon and prime contrac-
tor Oracle have dueling lawsuits
over the failed Cover Oregon
website, which was intended to
help individuals and small busi-
nesses shop for health insurance
coverage and determine individ-
uals’ eligibility for state-support-
ed health care.
“Matt Garrett is absolutely
right,” said state Sen. Betsy John-
son, D-Scappoose, the Senate
co-chairwoman of the legislative
subcommittee that approved the
Oregon Department of Trans-
portation budget, including $30
million for the ¿rst phase of an
upgrade estimated at $90 million
when it is done in 2023-25.
DMV Administrator Tom
McClellan said his agency still
uses mainframe technology that
dates back almost 50 years, and
relies on COBOL, a comput-
er programming language that
dates back to 1959.
The most recent upgrade was
in the 1990s.
“We took an evolutionary
approach and made gradual
changes in response to legislative
changes,” he said. “This is the
¿rst time in 20 years that we have
said we need to replace these sys-
tems, because they are the same
as we were trying to replace back
then – just 20 years older.”
CAPITAL
THE
BUREAU
What’s at stake
The DMV affects almost ev-
ery adult Oregonian.
The department licenses 3.1
million drivers. It issues 4.1 mil-
lion vehicle registrations, with
3.2 million of them for passenger
vehicles.
On an annual basis, the DMV
issues 200,000 new licenses and
renews 350,000 more; license
renewals are usually for eight
years. It issues 1.8 million vehi-
cle registrations — Oregon has
a two-year cycle — 850,000 ve-
hicle titles and 400,000 license
plate sets.
Lawmakers began the effort
in February 2012 with $500,000
for planning. In the new two-
year budget, they approved $30
million and 30 full-time employ-
ees for the ¿rst phase.
Included is $20 million for
new records systems for vehi-
cles, point of sale, and licensing
and regulation of dealers. The
new point-of-sale system will
build on an effort, which law-
makers approved $6.3 million
for separately, to enable the
DMV to accept credit and debit
cards for transactions.
Another $5 million is for the
new employees, and the rest for
development of the DMV2U
customer portal and outside con-
sultants to oversee the project,
change management and quality
assurance.
A multiyear $10 surcharge on
driver’s licenses was proposed,
but not approved by the Legisla-
ture, to help offset the cost of the
upgrade. It remains an option in
future sessions.
The budget also speci¿es the
membership of a group to over-
see the entire program: Three
members each from the Senate
and the House; two private-sec-
tor members chosen by the Tech-
nology Association of Oregon,
and representatives of the Legis-
lative Fiscal Of¿ce – which has
a staffer assigned to informa-
tion-technology projects – and
the state’s chief information of-
¿cer within the Department of
Administrative Services.
“I do not know what more
you can do,” Sen. Johnson said.
“On the panel you have mem-
bers from the people’s branch of
government, professional staff
and IT experts, and private-sector
people who bring a different ap-
proach to dealing with these mat-
ters. There is no fail-safe system,
but you do the best you can.”
Future phases will involve ve-
hicle titles and registrations, driv-
er’s licenses and other records,
through the 2023-25 budget cycle.
McClellan has been DMV
administrator since November
2007. He expects to oversee the
project from start to ¿nish.
“I’ll probably not be retired,
but the gray hairs are there,” he
said.
Other upgrades
The DMV project will fol-
low several other high-pro¿le
R.J. Marx/The Daily Astorian
State Sen. Betsy Johnson,
shown here speaking in
Seaside in July, is hopeful
about a panel named to
oversee the upgrade.
computer upgrades affecting key
functions of state government.
Among them are Oregon
eCourt, which the state court
system launched in 2011 and
expects to complete in mid-
2016, and the core systems re-
placement project at the Oregon
Department of Revenue, which
the agency started in 2013 and
expects to ¿nish by spring 2019.
Like the DMV, the systems of
those agencies are aging. OJIN
relies on 1980s technology, and
the Department of Revenue still
processes tax returns with sys-
tems dating back to 1993.
Both projects have encoun-
tered some bumps — but noth-
ing like the Cover Oregon fail-
ure, or some of the large cost
overruns listed in a June 2014
report compiled by the Legis-
lative Fiscal Of¿ce of 66 major
information-technology projects
dating back to 2006. “Major
project” is de¿ned as more than
$1 million.
One of those was the OR-
Kids system run by the Depart-
ment of Human Services, which
according to a 2014 state audit
had to repay $23.3 million in
federal funds and correct $9.5
million in balances as a result of
errors between September 2011
and December 2013.
Lawmakers approved $15.7
million and 24 more employees
for the Department of Admin-
istrative Services — the central
technology provider for state
government — to ¿x problems
and improve security.
Johnson acknowledges past
IT failures, but said there was
one critical difference between
Cover Oregon and the others.
“We had people in charge of
Cover Oregon coming to the Leg-
islature and not telling the truth, in
my observation,” she said.
The Cover Oregon failure, in
addition to the lawsuits, resulted
in multiple resignations.
It also led to Republican-spon-
sored bills, which got a House
committee hearing but did not
advance, to require some officials
to testify under oath and penalize
“false swearing” to the Legislature.
“I think we have not reached
the point where that is neces-
sary,” Johnson said. “But I cer-
tainly expect that legislators will
be observant and encouraged to
ask tough questions — and not
accept super¿cial answers.”
The Capital Bureau is a collab-
oration between EO Media Group
and Pamplin Media Group.
Oregon bottle deposit slated to rise in 2017 as redemption rate falls
By JONATHAN J.
COOPER
Associated Press
SALEM — New state data
show that Oregonians are re-
turning fewer beverage bottles
to redeem their 5-cent depos-
it, putting the state on track to
double the deposit to 10 cents
per bottle in 2017.
Figures released by the
Oregon
Liquor
Control
Commission on Wednesday
showed that just over 68 per-
cent of bottles were redeemed
in 2014, down nearly three
points from the year before.
Under a 2011 law aimed
at stemming the downward
trend in bottle redemption, the
deposit is slated to rise Jan. 1,
2017, if the redemption rate
does not stay above 80 percent
for two consecutive years.
“The dime will get the
consumer’s attention in a big
way,” said Vicki Berger, a for-
mer state representative from
Salem and a strong advocate
for the bottle bill. “Unfortu-
nately, it will probably cause a
backlash against the bottle bill,
which I don’t want to see.”
Berger’s father came up
with the bottle deposit con-
cept and convinced state law-
makers to adopt it in 1971.
It’s credited with signi¿cant-
ly boosting recycling and
reducing litter, and has since
been replicated in nine other
states, 12 Canadian provinces
and more than a dozen coun-
tries.
But redemption has fall-
en precipitously since the
1990s, when nearly all con-
tainers were returned for a
refund. That’s due in part to
the growth of curbside recy-
cling and consumer frustration
with grocery store redemption
rooms.
When they adopted the de-
posit hike, lawmakers tried to
make the bottle-return process
less frustrating. They allowed
uni¿ed redemption centers that
aim to be cleaner, faster and
larger than those in grocery
stores. The installation of re-
demption centers has increased
redemption rates within a 3.5-
mile radius, though by varying
degrees, said Cherilyn Bertg-
es, a spokeswoman for Oregon
Beverage Recycling Coopera-
tive, which collects and recy-
cles containers statewide.
At one store in Portland,
the number of redeemed cans
doubled, she said, while others
have seen a smaller increase of
10 to 15 percent. Twelve cen-
ters are now open, with plans
to eventually create about 45.
“We believe the redemp-
tion centers are helping,” Bert-
ges said. “They are increasing
the (redemption) rate where
they exist. They just don’t ex-
ist in enough places yet.”
Backers of the bottle bill say
redeeming the deposit is prefer-
able because the materials are
presorted, preventing contam-
ination and avoiding the sub-
stantial sorting costs associated
with curbside recycling.
Another big change to the
bottle bill is also on the way.
In 2018 the bottle deposit
will begin applying to glass,
metal or plastic beverage con-
tainers except those contain-
ing milk, wine or liquor — a
signi¿cant expansion over the
current system. Lawmakers
said it made little sense that
a soda bottle would require a
deposit but a nearly identical
iced tea bottle would not.
“People don’t realize the
billions and billions and bil-
lions of consumer containers
in Oregon that never went into
the waste stream, that were
actually recycled,” Berger
said. “Particularly aluminum,
which is so highly recyclable.
All the energy that didn’t have
to go into making new con-
tainers.”
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