July 2, 2019 Volume 2, Issue 4

The DOT2Go arrived at the Polk Counter Senior fair

held in May. The deployment team diligently worked through

some initial IT-related road bumps (shout out to Dale Miller

with IT for the support!), and ultimately had a successful de-

ployment. We had 15 drivers complete CarFit and were able to

issue 36 credentials from the DOT2GO (many were REAL ID

compliant!). We also provided information about how to obtain

a REAL ID card as many seniors had questions about this topic.

Thank you to our hard working DIS and E&I teams coming together

to make it a worthwhile event!

CDL Skills Test Modernization Pilot Testing Takes Place in New

Hampshire

Our own Cynthia Delp recently participated in AAMVA's CDL Skills Test Modernization Pilot

Testing in New Hampshire. Thank you for representing the IDOT. Article and photo below:

AAMVA's Test Maintenance Subcommittee, IDEC Board members and jurisdiction volun-

teers gathered at the New Hampshire Department of Public Safety (NH DPS) to implement

phase two of the CDL Skills Test System Modernization initiative. Hosted by the New Hamp-

shire Division of Motor Vehicles (NH DMV), jurisdiction CDL experts conducted over 60 pre-trip

and on-course skills tests with a wide range of commercial drivers and applicants to assess the

safety, effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed new test models. AAMVA would like to

thank NH DMV Director Elizabeth Bielecki, NH Driver

License Bureau Administrator Jeff Oberdank and the

NH DPS team who hosted this successful week of as-

sessment. Pictured left, AAMVA's Test Maintenance

Subcommittee, International Driver Examiner Certifi-

cation Board and representatives of NH DPS, all of

whom carried out pilot testing for 3 days in Concord,

NH. Pictured right, NH DPS and DMV leaders recog-

nize Maria Buckman (center) for her tremendous as-

sistance to CDL Skills Test Pilot testing team.

DOT2Go

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New Plates Available—July 1

The DOT finished up completion of the Morningside Mustangs College License Plate. Now

that testing is complete, this plate will be offered along with the other Collegiate plates on our

website starting July 1st.

Morningside College is a private liberal arts college located in Sioux City, Iowa. Founded in 1894,

Morningside College has 21 buildings on a 68-acre campus. The Morningside College experience

cultivates a passion for life-long learning and a dedication to ethical leadership and civic responsi-

bility.

There’s a cool new specialty license plate available to Iowans starting today! The latest addition to

the Iowa Department of Transportation’s options is the “blackout” plate -- an all-black plate with

white lettering authorized last legislative session.

It’s offered as both a standard alpha-numeric plate and a personalized plate, and customers can

order both online or by completing this form and mailing it to the Iowa DOT’s Vehicle & Motor Car-

rier Services Bureau. Iowa Prison Industries will make the plates and ship them to the local county

treasurer’s office, who will notify the customer when it’s available for pickup. Please remind cus-

tomers to bring the plates they are replacing to their County Treasurer Office to turn in when pick-

ing up their new plates.

The new plate will cost $35 for a standard alpha-numeric plate and an additional $25 (for a total of

$60) for a personalized plate. Funds collected for the blackout plate will go to the Road Use Tax

Fund, which funds state, county, and city road and bridge projects throughout Iowa.

License plates are an important tool used by law enforcement and others to help identify a vehicle.

This identification has many practical purposes and can be life-saving in the case of criminal activi-

ty or a situation like an Amber Alert. As a reminder, you should never use a license plate frame that

obscures or blocks the numbers and letters on the plate. It can hinder this identification and vio-

lates state law.

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Summer Has Finally Arrived—Help us, Help you!

With summer vacations coming and various team members covering

County Contact, we want to share a few helpful reminders. Let’s be honest, there

isn’t anything worse than having a customer waiting while making a phone call

for help and you get voicemail. When the County Contact is answered using a

phone outside the Ankeny Complex, the line no longer has a ‘holding queue’,

meaning calls are not answered in the order received. To help us, help you more

expeditiously and efficiently, we would like to suggest a few Tips and Tricks:

Voice mail messages: When county contact person is using a cell phone, caller will

get voicemail when we are on a call. Leaving a detailed message helps us, help you.

Missed calls/no message: If you choose not to leave a message when getting our voicemail, you will

not be receiving a call you back. Sometimes emailing County Contact will result in a quicker re-

sponse.

Start with your name and phone number: Phone numbers are important, especially if you have an

internal number or a direct extension to your desk.

Provide the Customer Number: Leaving the customer number in your message with a short descrip-

tion will allow us to pull up the information we need prior to returning your call. In the event we

need to look something up or have someone complete a process (like help with a work permit

comes to mind), then we can have it done by the time we call you back if we have the details in the

message.

*We realize at times you may not be able to explain it in a message, it may be more efficient to walk

us through it over the phone, and that is OK.

CDL Help Desk/Info Center/1075 Help Desk: Please remember that the County Liaisons and County

Contact are here to support you. The CDL Help Desk and Info Center are not staffed with records or

issuance personnel. These offices will most likely refer you to the County Liaisons or County Con-

tact if you call them for records, issuance or procedural questions (reexams, line exams, recalls,

medical/vision reports, etc.).

CDL Help Desk: They are here to assist with SPEX, CDLIS and PDPS hits. For example:

*Can a person be licensed in Iowa with an out-of-state hit?

*Is it a ‘reinstatement only’ hit?

*This CDL doesn’t have an out-of-state pointer.

*This customer has multiple SPEXs pointers, etc.

The staff with the 1075 Help Desk has been asked to refer you back to your County Liaisons or

County Contact, if you are calling to ‘remove something added in error’ or ‘tweak the record so you

can issue’ etc. Remember, every request made to 1075, takes valuable time away from the program-

mers who are trying to enhance and fix bugs in ARTs.

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Help us, Help you! Continued

Weekly Mailing of Issuance Document:

First, please remember to mail these each week. If you happen to find old documents laying

around, just email your County Liaisons so they can give the station a heads up. Communication is

the key to our success!

Remember the CN or DL#:

Taking a second to add the customer number and/or DL# to the upper right-hand corner of each

document saves a ton of time for the person scanning these documents. The DL Stations team

members are trying to get your scanning done between their customers and daily operations. I like

to think of scanning as the snowball effect; even though you may have only mailed in 5 documents

this week, each station can receive up to seven counties paperwork, each week. Since scanning is a

secondary priority to customers, it can start to stack up fast. Having the DL# and/or CN at the top

of each document will help streamline the process in the stations.

Stack Like Documents Together in the Envelope:

Please keep in mind that we have to ‘name’ each document before we can assign it a scanning

code in ERMS, then we have to drop it into the scanner and save it under that code. Changing the

‘name’ of the document for each document is not the most efficient , adding time to the process. It

also adds time within the ERMS system itself, it must catch up to each document change. To help

us be more efficient and effective in processing the documents we receive from you, please sort and

stack like documents together and do all of them at the same time.

In the ARTs code move, effective July 1, 2019 Coun-

ties will be offered an Enhanced Driving Record

view. The path to find the view is

Drivers Driving Record

This is a great opportunity for issuance staff to view

detailed conviction and sanction data; relevant to

customers’ eligibility for all types of issuance trans-

actions.

Your County Liaison will be coming to your office to

work with you in person on functions of this new

enhanced view. You can also visit IDOTU for a

training video, that will get you started.

The Compliance Summary screens you’ve used in

the past will continue to be updated and available

to you as well.

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2018 Examiner of the Year!

Congratulations, Julie Cox – 2018 Examiner of the Year

Each year, the American Association of Motor Vehicle

Administrators (AAMVA) International Driver Examiner

Certification (IDEC) Executive Board and Driver Com-

mittee recognizes driver’s license examiners who have

gone above and beyond their responsibilities in each

state. This spring Julie Cox was named 2018 Iowa Ex-

aminer of the Year. Julie started working for Driver and

Identification Services in March 1997, later promoting

to examiner in the Fort Dodge Service Center in 1999.

Julie was nominated for her outstanding ability to show

each customer compassion, understanding and respect.

Congratulations to Julie!

Minor School License Change for Private School Students

As Sara mentions below in her legislative updates, driver and identification services are being affect-

ed by several bills that were signed into law during the 2019 legislative session. We wanted to call

attention to one in particular, which affects minor school licenses (MSL) eligibility for private school

students.

During the 2019 legislative session, Iowa Code section 321.194 was amended to increase

the distance a private school student can reside from their school of enrollment for purpos-

es of obtaining an MSL, from 25 miles (current law) to 50 miles (new law). Effective July 1,

2019, private school students will be allowed to

drive on an MSL within a 50-mile driving dis-

tance from their residence to their school of en-

rollment for permitted purposes. This applies

only to students who are enrolled in a private

school, and public school students are still lim-

ited to driving within the school district of en-

rollment or a contiguous school district for per-

mitted purposes as stated in the code. For more

information about the new law and a helpful Q&A, please refer to Policy Memo 19-05.

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Change in Hours for Vehicle & Motor Carrier Services

We prize engagement with our team and one of the best ways to accomplish this is to

reserve a specific uninterrupted time each day for staff to regularly attend team meetings and

training sessions. To facilitate this opportunity Vehicle & Motor Carrier Services is changing our

hours. Currently Vehicle & Motor Carrier Services is available to customers beginning at 8:00

am Monday through Friday, however, starting July 1, 2019, Vehicle & Motor Carrier Services cus-

tomer service availability will begin a half hour later. The scheduled hours of service to the

public and our partners will change to now begin at 8:30 and end at 4:30 pm, Monday through

Friday. This would include counter service, phone service, emails, chat, and county queue.

We are excited about increasing our dedicated time spent on development and the increased

customer service knowledge it will afford our team. Thank you for your support on this change,

we honestly believe this will ultimately benefit us all.

Please reach out should you have any questions.

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Legislative update

For some, the month of July conjures up images of fireworks, barbecues, days at the beach

or RAGBRAI! But for others (a.k.a. Sara Siedsma), July is the month when new state laws take ef-

fect!

It was a busy legislative session this year and we issued several legislative memos explaining

bills that were passed and become effective on July 1. The memos affect both driver and identifi-

cation services (DIS) and vehicle and motor carrier services (VMCS) and below are a list of the top-

ics each memo covers along with the memo number:

• Student loan suspension repeal (IM 19-12)

• CDL requirements (IM 19-13)

• Private school minor school license (PM 19-05)

• Deaf/Hard of hearing indicator on DL/ID (IM 19-14)

• Peace Officers as driver’s education instructors (IM 19-15)

• 24/7 sobriety program (PM 19-06)

• Replacement DL/ID at 21st birthday (IM 19-16)

• Dallas County Service Center (IM 19-17)

• Towable recreational vehicles (IM 19-18)

• Autonomous vehicles (IM 19-19)

• Blackout plates (IM 19-20)

• Travel trailer dealer surety bond (IM 19-21)

• Special weight for farm trucks (IM 19-22)

• Certifications of trust (IM 19-23)

Self-service storage facility liens (IM 19-24)

Additionally, a memo related to transportation of raw forest products (IM 19-25), which primarily

affects motor carrier staff, was issued directly those staff.

We are also currently working on a memo discussing the new electric vehicle registration fees

that will be sent out to staff in advance of the new fees becoming effective January 1, 2020.

DOT staff can find copies of all of the memos out at the following link on the W drive.

County treasurers and treasurer staff can find copies of the memo on the county treasurer

website.

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#MVDnews

Yammer post — Darcy Doty

“I have to give a “shout out” to the Information

Center for their hard work. They did a fantastic

job keeping call wait times down - at times

around under 10 seconds. Way to go!”

Yammer post —

Darcy Doty

“I was so thrilled to present the Profes-

sional Development Certificate to Mari-

ly Henderson yesterday. Way to go,

Marilyn! Thank you for your commit-

ment to this certificate program.

Customer feedback —

Julio Ferreris-vazquez

Professional—Kind—Knowledgeable

These are the words a customer used to describe the excellent customer service re-

ceived from Julio. The customer reached out to Mary Ford to let us know she felt Julio

walked her through the process and she had a great experience. Way to go, Julio!

Molly Minkler

Molly Minkler was hired in May with the Bureau of Investigation & Identity Protection to serve as

an intern. She has completed her sophomore year at Iowa State University majoring in Criminal

Justice with a minor in Psychology. Molly has already started assisting with the facial recognition

program by running facial comparisons to determine if potential fraud exists and she must be a

natural as she has already found fraud! The Bureau is fortunate and exited to have Molly as part of

the team!

The Bureau of Investigation & Identity Protection requests that any questions from your office or

the public pertaining to Iowa’s abandoned vehicle process about established procedures or forms

(including the artisan lien process) please make direct contact with the Vehicle and Motor Carrier -

Services Bureau at 515-237-3110 or at vscusto@iowadot.us.

If you encounter a specific instance or receive an allegation of motor vehicle title fraud/theft as it -

relates to an abandoned vehicle in Iowa, please feel free to contact the Bureau at 515-237-3050 or

at invbureau@iowadot.us.

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