(The Center Square) — A state representative is calling on the Arizona Department of Transportation to quickly take action on the Motor Vehicle Division’s third-party providers following an audit showing significant flaws with the system.
The state’s Auditor General released a report this month saying that third-party providers were not being properly held accountable by MVD, and it poses a safety risk when it comes to issuing legal documents such as licenses and vehicle titles.
“When state agencies outsource their important government functions to third parties, and those third parties fail to meet their legal obligations and are not properly supervised as required by law, Arizonans suffer the consequences,” House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman David Cook, R-Globe, said in a statement. “In this instance, those consequences are particularly severe and threaten the public safety.”
The report contained numerous recommendations for ADOT, which the department said they would use going forward.
When The Center Square reached out to the department for comment, they provided a response to the report itself.
“We appreciate the Arizona Auditor General’s report and suggestions. MVD takes these concerns seriously, and has already begun addressing their findings. New draft procedures have been documented and are currently in pilot phase,” the department said in a statement. “Upon completion of the pilot, all procedures will be formally adopted. ADOT embraces a culture of continuous improvement and we continue to explore opportunities to review and improve processes.”
Third-party providers are intended to make it easier for Arizonans to get services that would normally be taken care of at an MVD office for a shorter wait time. However, the audit indicates that some of these locations gave documents to individuals who should not have been issued them, which they said is a risk for dangerous criminal activity such as fraud and terrorism.
“MVD has established statutorily required third-party quality standards and process, but third parties we reviewed did not comply with standards and process, including issuing some vehicle titles, driver licenses, and identification cards without evidence that individuals/entities were qualified and/or authorized to receive them,” the report stated, The Center Square reported Friday. “MVD has not sustained third-party monitoring and oversight processes consistent with our previous recommendations and has not held third parties to same standards as its own employees.”
