Multiple employees told auditors that the state government’s so-called “War on Wait Times” improved customer service but hampered the quality of record-keeping at the Registry of Motor Vehicles and ultimately risked public safety, despite their complaints.
Employees at the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, interviewed in the wake of the New Hampshire crash that killed seven motorcyclists, told the auditing firm, Grant Thornton, that their concerns about computer glitches piling up, lack of training on regulations, out-of-state records processing and dwindling resources went unaddressed, according to a 294-page transcript released this week.
“Could say waiting time has improved. However, at what cost?” said Cheryl Collaro-Surrette, a field services audit manager at MassDOT.
Some of the downsides: the RMV receives faulty checks because employees don’t take time to inspect the documents; duplicate driving records are created at branches daily, potentially enabling someone with a suspended license to get a new one; customers sometimes have to return to branches to address problems.
On one level, Grant Thornton auditors sought to find out how Volodymyr Zhukovskyy’s commercial license remained active despite a series of out-of-state arrests on drug-related traffic offenses. His license was active when his pickup truck slammed into a group of motorcyclists on a New Hampshire road on June 21, authorities said.
Zhukovskyy has been charged in connection with the deaths of the seven motorcyclists.
The private auditing firm also sought to investigate the government agency behind the lapse. What caused the RMV to let Zhukovskyy’s license remain active? The breath test refusal alone at a May 11 traffic stop in Connecticut should had triggered a suspension of his license, according to police.
Yet instead Zhukovskyy’s record appeared unaffected. His violation sat unprocessed among thousands of others overlooked out-of-state notifications — a larger backlog that grew over the past decade.
The final audit report was released to the public on a Friday afternoon in October.
Grant Thornton initially did not plan to share the transcripts, according to documents sent to the Joint Committee on Transportation, who is investigating the RMV’s record-keeping problems. Grant Thornton said firm would only release the documents if a subpoena were issued.
But Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack told WGBH earlier this week that she would release the transcripts.
According to the 294-page document, most employees interviewed by Grant Thornton cited a lack of resources. Some attributed it to the agency’s focus on customer service and perception over correcting larger, internal problems with record-keeping.
Thomas Bowes, the director of the Merit Rating Board who stepped down in August, said the agency focused resources on reducing wait times at service centers. Meanwhile, he lost six employees over the course of 14 months and didn’t get the green light to replace them.
READ MORE: MassDOT auditor rang alarm about unprocessed violations months before NH crash
Jim Logan, director of audit operations, said in an audit interview in August that Mindy D’Arbeloff, the deputy chief of staff for customer service in the governor’s office, pulled people out of the state offices into service centers, at times threatening their jobs, to reduce wait times.
“I heard from people that Mindy made the threats to both managers and staff,” he said.
Brie-Ann Dwyer, an internal auditor who used to be a hearings officer, said she had trouble reinstating certain drivers who were entitled to their privileges because of the system.
When Stephanie Bernard of Grant Thornton asked how that gets resolved, Dwyer said she would have to talk to someone else to get the matter fixed.
“Public safety was never a high priority before this,” Dwyer added.
Bernard asked what was.
“Wait time, easy transactions, the perception of the public, not the core functions,” Dwyer said. “The core functions, merit rating shouldn’t be as bad as it is, it’s not about safety. I said something was going to happen and it’s going to be bad because of the system.”
The system, she said, didn’t refer to the old computer program ALARS or even the new one called ATLAS. The system she referred to was the agency’s structure and its leadership.
Dwyer was working on an audit of her own of the Merit Rating Board when the New Hampshire crash happened. Months before the crash, Dwyer had flagged more than 12,000 unprocessed out-of-state notifications on the computer system to Bowes and then-Registrar Erin Deveney.
Dwyer testified before lawmakers in July about her concerns regarding out-of-state processing in the months leading up to the crash.
In the audit interview, Dwyer said she believed D’Arbeloff called the shots on customer service.
Erin Deveney, the former registrar who resigned in the wake of the crash, said D’Arbeloff was not assigned to handle any issues with out-of-state notifications like Zhukovskyy’s. Her assignment was to improve customer service, specifically with wait times.
But Deveney said D’Arbeloff was on the phone during a discussion about transferring out-of-state processing from one unit, the Driver Control Unit, to another, the Merit Rating Board.
Registrar Erin Deveney, pictured in 2017, resigned as head of the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles on June 25, 2019. State transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack said the RMV did not immediately act on information from Connecticut about the May 11 arrest of Volodymyr Zhukovskyy on drunken driving charges. Zhukovskyy allegedly went on to crash a truck into 10 motorcycle riders June 21 in New Hampshire, killing seven of them. (The Republican file photo)Staff-Shot
D’Arbeloff, who referred to the customer service initiative as the “War on Wait Times,” said she doesn’t remember any conversation about problems processing out-of-state notifications, according to the transcript.
Pollack said she didn’t know about any issues with out-of-state notifications until the New Hampshire crash.
While transportation employees complained about lack of resources and training, Pollack pushed back on such assertions.
“There is a persistent belief we took positions away in back office functions to do front office functions. I would say look at actual numbers,” she said. “We always have to juggle as a public agency to be efficient and work within the reality that we cannot finish the year in a deficit and within the constraint of whatever money is legislatively allocated.”
Pollack asked the auditors to look at the headcount in each unit. The transcripts do not include any such records.