Dave Delivers! DMV Audit Highlights Democrat Mismanagement
August 5, 2025
State Auditor Dave Boliek fulfilled a campaign promise yesterday and released a comprehensive audit of the DMV. The executive summary of the audit is yet another indictment of the failure of Democrats to manage the agency, starting with former Gov. Roy Cooper, who now wants to run off to Washington and avoid hearing about the problems he made worse.
Boliek's team found that:
- DMV has faced increasing customer dissatisfaction and deteriorating service quality, rising employee burnout and attrition, delayed or failed modernization efforts.
- Additionally, if DMV inefficiencies are not addressed the state faces increased risks toworkforce participation, business operations, and overall economic productivity.
- DMV and Department of Information Technology – Transportation (DIT-T) have not fully implemented the recommendations from an April 2024 legislative study to complete a comprehensive DMV Application System Modernization project plan, prioritize the components of the DMV’s IT infrastructure to enhance the customer experience, begin data cleansing procedures necessary for successful IT modernization, or develop a comprehensive personnel management plan.
- A significant share of customers faced far longer visits. In fiscal year 2025, 13.8% of customer visits exceeded 2.5 hours, up from 7.7% in fiscal year 2019 – a 78.8% increase statewide. The problem is most acute in rural and urban areas.
- Outside of the DOT Strategic Plan, DMV has not developed its own current strategic plan since 2019. In 2019, in response to OSA’s May 2018 Division of Motor Vehicles Performance Measurement performance audit recommendations DMV developed a strategic plan in consultation with the UNC School of Government.
"Auditor Boliek and his team are revealing mismanagement of this agency under the tenure of Roy Cooper," said NCGOP Chairman Jason Simmons. "We greatly appreciate Auditor Boliek's effort to deliver on a campaign promise to clean up state government. As for Cooper, once again we see he was more concerned with the needs of left-wing special interests than the people of North Carolina."
