BATON ROUGE — While Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry is excited about the new system recently put in place at the Office of Motor Vehicles, some system users and Louisiana drivers are dealing with some major concerns. It’s caused major disruptions and ongoing headaches, they tell UWK.
The governor announced the launch of CHAMP Titles Inc.’s Driver Services platform, which is an overhaul of the state’s 50-year-old system.
Gov. Landry compared using the new system to a day at Disney World and said it will “cut hours” off the process to get driver’s licenses, adding that it will end unnecessary delays and long processes.
“We promised Louisianans shorter lines and an easier experience at the OMV, and today we’re delivering on that promise. CHAMP gives folks a faster, simpler way to get the services they need, while cutting costs and inefficiencies that have plagued this system for over fifty years. This is what a modern, 21st century government should look like,” said Gov. Landry in his release.
Problems
As with any new system overhaul, some glitches and technical problems are always expected. This time though, not only are users of the new system struggling, Louisianians are learning their legal names have changed, CDL licenses now some issues and one person learned while out of state that his license was now canceled.
An OMV employee spoke to UWK about the abundance of issues they’ve already seen with the new system in its rollout. To protect their identity, UWK is choosing not to release the employee’s name or identifying information.
The employee said the system was supposed to go live on Tuesday, Sept. 15 but the night before, around 10 p.m., they were notified that it wasn’t ready. Because the new system is for driver’s licenses and not a vehicle system, they were told that OMV offices would likely have to be closed on Tuesday. They said that around 3 p.m. on Tuesday, they were then sent another email saying they would know for sure before 6 p.m. whether the locations could be open on Wednesday. However, that email never showed up until 8 p.m., where employees were then notified that offices would be open on Wednesday.
“When we showed up Wednesday morning, none of the PTAs (Public Tag Agency, aka Express DMV) could access the system. Only the main offices could access the system. That took multiple hours to resolve. Half the people can’t even log in to the system at all,” they told UWK about the experience that first day.
One of the most common issues that OMV workers have noticed is data migration.
“There are many data migration issues such as people who were legally the third and had the roman numerical III in the old system, when the information was migrated into the new system, this was changed to make them all seconds. That’s not legally their name. We can’t let them leave with an ID that has the wrong legal name on it so these people are unable to leave with an ID.”
They said that there have also been issues with CDL drivers, saying that the drivers are forced to park in other states because of the problems. As an example, they said one truck driver is stuck in Arkansas because—due to the system issues—his driver’s license says he can only drive in Louisiana.
The employee says the state is not even responding to their emails about the concerns. Instead, they say that the state is pointing the finger back at the employees, alleging that they’re likely the ones who are altering the records.
Issues causing multiple OMV trips
Marie J. Williams told UWK she experienced issues that led to multiple trips just to get her brother a renewed handicap license.
“My brother is in a wheelchair, and I still have to take him down to get his picture made and every four years, I have to go to the DMV and get new credentials for him,” Williams said. His handicap tag expires at the end of this month.
She went on Sept. 18, which ended up being a wasted trip because the new system wouldn’t print a handicap tag. She then went back on Thursday, Sept. 24 where everything is now fixed.
Normally, her brother—who’s 75 years old—stays home. But because they had to physically go to the OMV, Williams and her sister had to collectively work together to get him ready, put him in the wheelchair and then the car, and then get him out at the OMV location.
“We got all the way out there to realize (the system) was down and realize we had to do it all over again. It’s very inconvenient to go to the main DMV in Baton Rouge. I can’t stand that much. It’s why I try to go to the express ones around town in Baker, Zachary or Port Allen,” Williams said. The second time she went to the express DMV, she was there first thing in the morning by 9:15.
“It’s just been very inconvenient,” Williams added.
Canceled driver’s license
“It was kind of a shocker and real frustrating,” another victim of the new upgraded OMV system told UWK. Issues with the new system led to the man getting ticketed.
Travis Foster was in Long Beach, MS a few days ago when an officer pulled over him over because one of his headlights was out. He says he took his driver’s license and stayed in his police car for nearly 20 minutes.
When the officer came back to Foster, “He said, ‘I’m giving you a warning for the headlight but the problem is your license is canceled.’ I said, ‘Canceled?’ He goes, ‘Yeah, I’ve seen suspended, revoked and expired but not canceled. I’m not sure what’s going on with it.’ But he wrote me a ticket for it.”
Foster says the officer did tell him once he could prove the license isn’t canceled, they would take care of the ticket but in the meantime, Foster has a headache to deal with in trying to figure out how his driver’s license ended up “canceled” and now how to prove that wasn’t the case.
“I’ve never had anything happen. I don’t even have tickets on my record or anything. When I asked the cop, he couldn’t explain it. He said, ‘I’ve never seen this before but in our system in Mississippi, it’s as if you don’t have a license at all like you’re driving without a license.’ That’s why he gave me a ticket. I’ve never had a suspended, revoked, expired…my license has always been fine,” Foster explained to UWK. “I called the DMV 100 times on Tuesday morning and never could get a live agent,” he said.
So he went to the OMV in Livingston Parish in person trying to get proof that his license wasn’t canceled. Unfortunately, he says the attitude he was met with forced him to find an express DMV instead.
“The girl behind the desk acted like I was inconveniencing her and I was like this is all you guys’ fault. Finally, she prints me a piece of paper from the DMV website saying there are no issues with my license and stamped it saying original copy,” Foster said.
He said he learned he was actually the third person with the same problem thanks to the upgraded system.
“So far, it doesn’t seem great. I’m sure they’ll work the kinks out but it’s crazy that I had to find out by being pulled over that there’s a problem with my license and I had no idea but in reality, there was nothing wrong with my license. It was a system glitch. But it was nothing I did wrong,” Foster said.
UWK reached out to the Office of Motor Vehicles regarding these concerns. OMV Deputy Commissioner Matthew Boudreaux shared the following statement:
Given the massive scale of this deployment—migrating 90 million mainframe legacy records from the 50-year-old system—we anticipated a few edge-case bugs during the initial launch phase. Our support teams are actively monitoring performance, working through these items as they surface, and fixes are being deployed quickly.
CHAMP and the state will continue work to implement the Vehicle Services platform for the OMV in 2027, which the governor says will create “an integrated environment that supports both driver and vehicle transactions through a unified modern architecture.”
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