Bill Would Slash 28 Licensing Jobs

Drivers may have to spend more time in Department of Licensing waiting rooms if the Senate transportation budget makes it through the Legislature.

The budget, crafted by Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, Senate Transportation Committee chair, would eliminate 28 full-time employees from the DOL’s drivers services.

This would come one year after the Legislature created 25 new DOL jobs to improve customer service.

Denise Movius, drivers services director, urged legislators to reconsider going back on the goals it set forth last year.

Haugen seemed unreceptive.

“This whole budget is a reversal of what we did last year,” the Camano Island Democrat said.

Movius told the committee about gains the DOL has made in improving customer service over the past year. She said the Federal Way branch decreased its wait times by 50 percent.

Sen. Julia Patterson, a Seatac Democrat who sits on the transportation committee, discouraged Movius and her department from using the elimination of employees as an excuse for poor customer service.

“I think the problems go way beyond … a shortage of staff,” Patterson said.

The entire Senate budget would cut 1,208 full-time employees from various transportation-related departments. Not all of these positions are currently filled.

“The toughest part of this budget was to cut any employees,” Haugen said.

The Washington State Patrol would lose employees under the budget proposal as well. Its support services bureau, which trains new hires and current employees, currently staffs just under a dozen employees. With the budgets proposed cut only one employee would remain.

Capt. Eric Robertson, WSP spokesman, said if these and other proposed cuts stand, the agency may have to cut its August 2000 and April 2001 academy classes.

He worries this and other cuts could result in fewer state troopers on highways.