AUSTIN, TX-- Five counties in the Concho Valley could see their only driver license office shut down. That number is increases to 14 throughout the Big Country, as first reported by KTXS.
The Texas Department of Public Safety is under review by the Sunset Commission. One goal of the review is to “develop and implement a plan to close inefficient driver license offices.”
A total of 87 driver license offices were listed on the report from the Sunset Commission.
The five from the Concho Valley were:
- Runnels County (Ballinger)
- Reagan County (Big Lake)
- McCulloch County (Brady)
- Sutton County (Sonora)
- Coleman County
James Allison, General Counsel for the County Judges and Commissioners Association of Texas, sent a letter to the members of the Sunset Commission asking them to reject the recommendations.
In the letter, Allison estimated residents in each county would have to drive nearly 50 miles to the nearest office.
“Amazingly, neither the DPS nor the Sunset Commission staff has
attempted to calculate the increased cost to Texas citizens from the closure of
these offices,” Allison said. “If the 2,500 annual customers from the each of the 78 sole county
offices travel 100 miles roundtrip to obtain this service, at a cost of
$0.50 per mile, they will incur $3,900,000 in additional transportation costs
for this service.”
Allison added DPS collected $405 million while using just $149 million on their license and identification services. Because of that, Allison feels there is no justification to closing the 78 sole county offices.
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Comments
If they do then everyone in that county should be able to go online and renew cdl and all. Or state can pay per mile for people to drive 50 miles and wait HOURS to get it done so I say state pays minuinum wage per hour you wait and mileage I bet after you add that up for all people in that county. It’s cheaper to keep office open.
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PermalinkVoter suppression. Rural Texans will loose the ability to have their say in the voting booth.
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PermalinkMaking it more difficult to obtain a drivers license makes it more difficult to vote in voter suppression states such as Texas. This has nothing to do with efficiency.
Closing the offices is a blatant attempt to make it more difficult for the poor, elderly, and disabled to get the proper credentials in order to vote. Taking a few hours off work to get a license is not much of a problem for the more affluent citizens but it is a hardship for the poor, elderly, and disabled citizens of Texas.
They are less likely to get a drivers license under these circumstances which is exactly the goal of the people who claim that the offices are being closed for efficiency. No drivers license means no proper ID and the right to vote has been taken away from the ones targeted by the closings.
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PermalinkClosing small county driver’s license offices has nothing to do with voter suppression & everything to do with stupidity. Who exactly is the Sunset Commission? Clearly, the members have never lived in a small county with total populations under 10,000 people! These commission members are total morons! If they need to save some money, they need to look at closing some offices within cities such as San Antonio, Dallas & Houston areas that have multiple driver’s license offices & leave alone the ones 50-100 miles from the next closest facility. Perhaps LIVE! could find out who these fools are & publish their names.
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