Canyon County Sheriff fed up with DMV issues, tells State to take ownership

CALDWELL, Idaho — As technical issues continue to impact the State's drivers license offices increasing wait times for some, and turning others away empty handed.

As frustrations rise with the system issues that have severely impacted operations at most driver's license offices across the state, Canyon County Sheriff Kieran Donahue has had enough. In a statement released from his office on Thursday, Donahue aims to point the finger squarely at the State and ITD who are responsible for the state maintained system all Sheriff's offices are required to use.

"For the second day in a row, customers who've taken time out of their day to come to our driver's license office are forced to wait for extended periods or, in some cases, turned away due to issues with the State's system. This is unacceptable. We have no other options other than use their system, but when it fails, the Sheriffs and their driver's license office staff are the ones left holding the bag," says Sheriff Donahue.

This is not the first time this issue has happened. In fact, Sheriff Donahue points out that they have seen this same issue happen time and time again over the years with the State, "yet they refuse to take ownership of the continued problems with their system."

As Sheriff's Offices across the state work to find a solution, Donahue reports that one office was told by ITD to issue temporary licenses without a photo or signature. That would in practice make that a useless piece of ID and the Sheriff's Office refused to issue what Donahue says "would be a useless and unusable driver's license."

CBS2 reached out to ITD for a response to the statements made by Sheriff Donahue and received the following response. "The Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) is in the process of moving servers from our State Street property to the new Chinden campus. During this migration the Idaho Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) experienced network slowdowns on Wednesday and Thursday; these have been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience this caused for our customers and county partners. ITD continues to work closely with county DMV offices. The Idaho DMV driver’s license system is stable and has been since 2018."

While the servers moving to a new location might explain the delays over the past week, it is not apparent what is the cause of the issues Sheriff Donahue made reference to that he says have plagued the system for years.

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