The Batavian received the following complaint from a reader:
I dropped off paperwork at the Batavia DMV. They say it takes 2-3 weeks to get it back. You're telling me that something that takes normally 20 minutes to do in person takes weeks due to the COVID? Could you please help shed light on this for all of Genesee County.
County Clerk Michael Cianfrini responds:
Very simply, the volume of dropbox work has increased exponentially since we were able to reopen and began processing them, while at the same time we are seeing an increase in dealer work, providing great service to our in-office customers and manning the phones all day long. We are currently receiving approximately 20x the normal daily volume of dropbox transactions, in addition to seeing a significant increase in the volume of our dealer work. Every day we allocate staff to focus on the dropbox work, but when 200 or more transactions are received each day, including many, many from out of county, we can only do our best to process them and return them as quickly as we can. We have to dedicate staff to the dealer work to ensure that those transactions are processed and returned in a timely fashion, and we obviously have to assign staff to service the in-office customers who have made appointments. We also currently hand deliver dozens of license plates to Genesee County residents at the curb outside every day, in order to avoid them having to come into the office and unnecessarily placing themselves at risk. Factor in the fact that we now receive well over 600 phone calls per day that someone has to try to answer, and we, unfortunately, end up with approximately a 2 week turnaround time.
While some customers may view this as an unusually lengthy turnaround time, I assure you that given the situation it is not. In fact, we are receiving so many out of county transactions via mail and the dropbox precisely because many of the surrounding counties are experiencing an even longer lag time. Based upon conversations I have had with other county clerks, two weeks is actually a shorter turnaround time than many other county DMVs can provide. I would also like to add than in the case of registration renewals submitted with the renewal invite that the customer received in the mail, we are able to process them and mail them back usually the same day. We are also one of the only counties that have phone lines still open to the public to answer questions, as many other counties have turned off their phones completely, a fact that out-of-county residents express to us on the phone countless times each day.
In summary, while the situation may not please every customer, Genesee County is absolutely not alone in experiencing a backlog on submitted transactions. I am very proud of the job we are doing and the service we are providing given the circumstances. We are in the same situation as almost every DMV statewide and are handling the extreme volume of work in an efficient and timely manner all things considered. If one were able to even reach a neighboring DMV on the phone, they would find that Genesee County is as fast or faster in most cases in processing and returning work. While one transaction may only take “20 minutes to do in person,” that transaction must now take its place in line with the hundreds and hundreds of other transactions that were submitted before it. For every complaint that you may hear from an anxious customer, I assure you we receive many times that number of "thank you’s" and compliments on our fast and courteous service.
I hope this sheds some light on the situation, and I thank the residents of Genesee County for their continued patronage and patience.
