One big red flag in the Department of Revenue’s Fiscal Year 2023 performance measures is turnaround time for motor vehicle titles. Revenue targeted 15 days or less to issue titles; instead, on average, they needed more than a month:
Some of that title lag time must come from the two-month shortage of title paper: Revenue ran out of title paper and had to stop printing titles last November and didn’t get a resupply and restart printing until January 12. But the department says the main cause of the long wait for titles was “continued staffing issues”, which are reflected in another red flag in the performance measures, 13% employee turnover. That’s better than the recent peak of 15.9% in FY2018 but still above the department’s target turnover rate of 10%.
The Department of Revenue says it’s assigned non-motor vehicle staff and summer temps to help process titles and is paying overtime to reduce the delay, but the departments says even those extra hands and hours may not get the processing time down to 15 calendar days. Rather than hiring more staff to do the job (a quick check of the state’s job listings shows Revenue advertising for just one opening, telephone customer service, $17.07 to $19.16 per hour) Revenue says it may change its target to 15–18 business days.
I applied for a “new” title on my 2000 Toyota Tundra to have my late husband’s name removed on May 15; I received the title on July 22. That’s sixty-eight days for “continued staffing issues.” Employees of the Fall River County Treasurer’s office assured me this was to be expected and acted as if this is South Dakota’s normal. I guess it is; good thing I didn’t need to produce the title.
Hmmmm…constituent services…car titles, you say?? That’s Hazel’s job. She retired last year. There is a hiring freeze, you know. We need a couple interns or high school girls around here. It’s summer, you know.
The process is not any slower than its been in the past, maybe an extra week, but the way the process works, the dealers have priority, getting those titles out in 7-10 days is important knowing the State is expecting them to get the cars sold in a matter of days, enabling them to get the taxes collected. Yes, Dealers can hold on to the titles, but many of us do submit the foreign titles to Pierre mostly cause it sucks to get duplicate titles across state lines. Many of the used cars these days come into the state from other Auction Houses in Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota Wyoming, etc…
As a dealer, we have been getting our titles back in a little over 7 days, maybe 10 days tops, while private titles are usually an extra 7 days to 15 days give or take processing time, and other related issues that sometimes up. The process can be slowed down during the verification process of checking mistakes, errors, ommissions, other documents. Usually, the State would send a notice out if they are seeking further information, and sometimes people dont always get these notices right away, some people throw their mail off to the side, etc.
Simple rule of thumb, if dealers are getting their titles in 2 weeks, the private citizens are usually another 2 weeks later…
Minnehaha County and Pennington are the two largest counties in the State, and I know that Minnehaha is processing nearly 3-5 boxes a day, and those boxes probally have 100 titles each in them at least…The “State” uses the first come, first out manner to process them. Now couple that x 66 counties and then further, expect the processing and verificaiton time it takes to double check p’s and q’s
Bonnie, typically, there is a provision in state law that if you would of have sold the car in those 60 days, meaning, you had 30-45 days to produce the title before the temporary tags expire, you can go to the DMV/Pierre who can provide to you (the seller) an additional 45 days, allowing your buyer to extend the temporary plate another 45 days. There are a number of things within the process that cause slow it down, if the state has to send out notices to others to check p’s and q’s or is seeking additional info, that all plays into it. Specially where one has to seek duplicate titles whereas the previous owner is no longer at the last known address, or where the duplicate title is from foreign state.
Be glad your not in Minnesota where it take nearly 8 weeks to get a duplicate title..
Ran into a guy at one of the Kroger’s in Santa Fe driving a gorgeous RV with Pennington County plates so I went over and said hi asking where he lived and he said Santa Fe. But why the South Dakota plates and he said, “it’s a tiny fraction to register this rig where nobody cares.”
Sorry about the apostrophe.
Mr. Zitterich, how many cars, on average, do you move in a month? Can you get a specific used car through your network if a fellow was looking for, say, an ’68 Opel GT?
Hey grud, if someone was looking for say, a dog turd as the result of ingesting a plate of gravy taters what would be your split?
Are Mormons Christian, grud?
Are Jews pagans?
Where did Mike Z’s god find the bowl of cereal in which to drown?
FWIW, I registered a used car purchase in Pennington County on 6-8-23 and just received the title on Thursday 8-3-23. The title stated the issue date as 7-30-23.
It will not be long before we won’t all be driving cars. Perhaps electric or some other sustainable technology, but that romantic freedom of the open road is pricing itself beyond 9 billion peoples’ individual capabilities. As a recent transplant to a progressive western state, the title/plates/registration/emissions/insurance and demand infrastructure, and policing etc., is profoundly inefficient.