Sham Audit of DMV Will Leave Californians in the Dark

Wait times at the Department of Motor Vehicles are up more than 60 percent, forcing some Californians to stand in line for more than six hours. While Californians wait, the DMV has retained employees who slept on the job for years instead of performing actual work. Complaints prompted politicians to demand an audit, but DMV boss Jean Shiomoto was opposed. Legislators not only backed off the audit, they handed the DMV another $16 million. The problems promptly got worse, with major delays at dozens of offices. As Richard Alcera of Hayward told ABC News, “The earliest appointment I was able to get was in December.”

Last week Governor Jerry Brown announced an audit of the DVM, which Shiomoto duly welcomed. That is no surprise because Brown did not deploy the California State Auditor, an independent agency of great effectiveness. For example, state auditor Elaine Howle’s office uncovered a secret slush fund of $175 million at the University of California, despite efforts by UC president Janet Napolitano to deceive the auditors. For the DMV, Jerry Brown is deploying the state Department of Finance, “the governor’s chief fiscal policy advisor,” previously headed by unqualified incompetents such as Ana Matosantos, with a BA in political science feminist studies. She was the selection of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger but duly retained by Brown. Current boss Keely Bosler has an advanced degree in economics, but the State Auditor is better suited for the DMV audit. 

Under the 2015 “motor voter” law the DMV has been cranking out registered voters who are not, in fact, eligible to vote. By 2016, a full 806,000 ineligibles had been registered, but Secretary of State Alex Padilla won’t reveal how many voted and refuses to cooperate with federal probes of voter fraud, a serious crime. By April 2018, the DMV registered more than one million ineligibles. Brown’s Department of Finance audit won’t yield any information on how many ineligibles manage to vote in November. 

The Department of Finance audit won’t even yield a report until March 2019. Californians should not be surprised if few if any reforms are implemented and the DMV, as after recent revelations, gets a hefty budget increase. The DMV did not fire the drone who slept on the job, so a ballpark figure for DMV bosses who will get the axe in Brown’s sham audit is zero. Meanwhile, the DMV is taking appointments for December. Book yours today. 

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K. Lloyd Billingsley is a Policy Fellow at the Independent Institute and a columnist at The Daily Caller.