NewTue, Jun 9, 2026·Denver, Colorado·Council Committees

Denver City Council Finance and Business Committee: DMV Operations Update and Service Improvements – June 9, 2026

Discussion Breakdown

Engineering And Infrastructure44%
Legislative Affairs11%
Procedural9%
Personnel Matters9%
Civic Infrastructure7%
Fiscal Sustainability6%
Public Safety5%
Community Engagement4%
Technology and Innovation3%
Data Management2%

Summary

Denver City Council Finance and Business Committee: DMV Operations Update and Service Improvements – June 9, 2026

The Finance and Business Committee, chaired by Councilmember Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez, received a briefing from Treasurer Sophia Hassman and Director Ted Trujillo on Denver's Department of Motor Vehicle operations, challenges, and plans for 2026. The presentation highlighted service volumes, wait times, internal staffing issues, and a proposed shift to eliminate rolling closures by converting the Tremont office into a commercial-only center while keeping all four quadrant branches open for residents. Councilmembers asked about staffing levels, the feasibility of appointments, commercial customer impacts, and specific branch concerns, and expressed support for increased capacity.

Discussion Items

  • Presentation on DMV Operations: Treasurer Hassman and Director Trujillo presented an overview of DMV functions (title and registration, not driver licenses), noting a perfect state audit and high professionalism of staff. They showed service volumes: 65,000 customers/year on average, 286,000 in-branch, 290,000 e-services, and growing kiosk usage. Third-party dealer transactions have added unfunded workload due to errors.
  • Internal Challenges: Effective staffing rate is only 55% due to high turnover (staff dislike daily reassignments from rolling closures), long training times (six months), and leave cases. Rolling closures have created unpredictability for customers and staff.
  • Work Plan to Improve Service: Goals include (1) improving public communication (website upgrades, branch signage, door desk preview), (2) eliminating rolling closures by opening all four quadrant branches consistently, and (3) repositioning the Tremont office as a commercial center for fleet and dealer transactions. Technology solutions (appointments, pay-by-phone) are being evaluated, but a full appointment system for residents would create a four-month backlog.
  • Council Q&A: Councilmember Cashman asked about the 55% staffing rate; Trujillo cited PTO, training, and leave cases, and noted that in 2018-2019 more staff led to 20-minute wait times and lower error rates. Councilmember Romero Campbell shared a personal experience of a four-hour wait, praised staff professionalism, and noted that Council sent a budget letter to the mayor to increase DMV capacity. Councilmember Hines discussed miscommunication between state and county services, and did math showing need for ~65 frontline workers daily. Councilmember Watson asked about proximity from the east side to other branches (5-12 miles, 15-30 minutes by car) and capacity at Tremont for commercial customers. Councilmember Lewis raised concerns about signage and access at the Montbello/Northeast branch, with Real Estate Director Lumley noting lease and cost constraints. Councilmember Gonzales-Gutierrez discussed dealer third-party training, enforcement of expired tags (spike after enforcement started), registration fee collection (about $30M/month total, $24M to county from taxes/fees), and a public PSA about changing address with DMV and preventing tag theft.

Key Outcomes

  • The committee received the briefing and will forward 27 consent agenda items to the full council without discussion.
  • Councilmembers expressed commitment to working with the DMV on communications, budget support for staffing, and exploring legislative remedies for the unfunded mandate of third-party dealer transactions.
  • The DMV will finalize website upgrades, continue training new hires from May, and work toward eliminating rolling closures by repositioning Tremont as a commercial center, pending further evaluation of technology solutions.
  • Councilmember Gonzales-Gutierrez suggested a follow-up conversation on legislative fixes for third-party workload via the city's intergovernmental committee.

Meeting Transcript

It's time for this biweekly meeting of the Finance and Business Committee of Denver City Council. Join us for the Finance and Business Committee starting now. Right. Good morning, everyone. Um, welcome to Finance and Business Committee. Today is Tuesday, June 9th. Uh, my name is Serena Gonzalez Cutiere. I'm one of your council members at large, and uh glad to be the chair of this committee. Uh, we're gonna start with council member um and not announcements, what am I saying? Council member introductions, and then we will go on to our agenda for today. I'm gonna going to start with any members we have participating virtually and see if anybody's online. Not yet. All right, then we'll go ahead and start in the room, and I will start over here to my left. Uh, good morning, Darrell Watson, fine, district nine. Good morning, Paul Cashman South Denver, District 6. Good morning, Diana Romero Campbell, Southeast Denver, District 4. Good morning, Chris Hines. Denver is perfect. 10. Perfect delivery for Herb and 10. All right. And we may have members joining us online. I'll make sure that we welcome them as they join. Um, with that said, um, today we have a briefing coming from the Department of Motor Vehicle. Thank you so much for the folks joining us today. Uh please introduce yourselves, proceed with your presentation. I'll be taking uh a cue from council members, and we'll do questions at the end. Wonderful. Uh good morning, everyone. Good morning, council members. We're glad to be here today. Um my name is Sophia Hassman. I am the city and county of Denver Treasurer, and I am joined by our director of motor vehicle, Ted Trujillo. Uh we really appreciate this invitation to be here and present to you some updates on the DMV and status of things going on in 2026. Um I'd also like to acknowledge the hardworking staff of the DMV. Uh they have, you know, continue to serve our constituents day in, day out, and really have been working hard in a high volume and high demand environment and continue to show up with professionalism and engagement and are innovative in ways that we can continue to serve Denver's residents as well as the commercial customers we have. Um, so today we want to share some information about the DMV operations, our work plans and some opportunities coming forward, goals, and we're really happy to come here and get feedback from the committee for um working together on you know those goals that we can help serve this um entire Denver residents and all the Denverites, and the community of the commercial businesses that interact with all of the business vehicles. Um we also want to make sure that we uh provide a clear understanding of when and how and how the prep is to come to the DMV versus other opportunities in which a lot of the transactions are made. Um there is a high volume of transactions from different components of you know, online mail kiosks, and then in-person transactions as well. Um so I will let Ted start with the slides that we have. Let me move forward. First of all, DMB is we are re in statute. We are identified as uh agents of the state. State of Colorado by statute is the only one who can um title and register and uh create credentials for uh residents of the state of Colorado. We are agents of the state, therefore they delegate that authority to us as a county to then facilitate those services. Colorado also uses the title and registration process to collect many of their taxes. Um, one of the most common complaints you hear from residents that come from other states to Colorado is the sticker shock initially because uh they may have paid $50 for an annual renewal where we may be in the thousands of dollars based on the taxing sources. So uh basically that's what we do. We title and register uh motor vehicles uh for residents of the city and county of Denver. We do not do driver's license services as that's a uh state function.