NC’s new DMV commissioner says he likes a challenge. He sure has one now.
Friday morning was fairly typical at the Division of Motor Vehicles office in East Raleigh: The waiting room was full and the line of people hoping to get in stretched dozens deep down the sidewalk.
But inside, about half of the computer terminals used by driver’s license examiners were vacant.
The DMV has never had enough people to fully staff this office and has asked the General Assembly for authorization and money to hire eight more examiners here and 53 for other offices with similar vacancies across the state.
Paul Tine, the new DMV commissioner, says he met with lawmakers last week and says they’re receptive to providing money for more employees. But he says that’s just part of the changes needed to make the agency function as it should.
Tine, who started his new job May 6, says the DMV needs to revamp its culture and operations to better serve customers. He noted that the East Raleigh office is experimenting with seeing only walk-in customers, while the one in Fuquay-Varina is doing the opposite and only seeing people who have an appointment — both variations on the mix of appointments and walk-ins the agency uses now.
“The one thing that we know today is that it’s broken and it’s not working the way it needs to work right now,” he said, looking down the row of half-filled examiner’s stations in the East Raleigh office. “So we need to test a bunch of different ways that we can solve this.”
Tine, 53, says he likes to fix things and loves a challenge. He certainly has one now. The DMV is widely reviled and criticized for long lines and wait times and lack of appointments at its driver’s license offices. Frustrated lawmakers have threatened to privatize the parts of the agency still under government control.
Tine says he’s well-suited for the job. He cites his experience in customer service as owner of Midgett Insurance Agency in Dare County and the MBA he earned from UNC-Chapel Hill during the COVID-19 pandemic.
He will also lean on his experience and relationships in the General Assembly, where he represented Dare, Hyde, Washington and part of Beaufort counties in the state House for two terms, ending in 2016. Tine was elected twice as a Democrat, before leaving the party in 2015 and joining the House Republican Caucus as an unaffiliated legislator.
His relationship with the General Assembly’s Republican leaders sets him apart from his predecessor, Wayne Goodwin, who had spent four years as chairman of the Democratic Party and was openly criticized by Republican lawmakers during his three years as DMV commissioner.
“You add all that together,” Tine says, “and I think I have the right tools to be able to transform this organization into a top-level customer service organization.”
Tine to see first-hand how the agency works
Tine is still learning how DMV works. He says he plans to visit all 115 driver’s license offices across the state to meet with front-line workers, who he says are the most important in the agency.
He also plans to get trained as a driver’s license examiner so he can work behind the counter; in the meantime, he will stand in as the employee who greets customers and makes sure they’re in the right place and have the documents they need to complete their business.
“I want to know what it’s like to deliver our services and know what the challenges are and what the experience is like,” he said. “It’s easy to make changes when you look at it, but it’s harder to make the right changes without understanding the experience.”
The East Raleigh office on New Bern Avenue was Tine’s first visit. There, among other things, he learned that the machines that examiners use to scan documents are slow and that the written driver’s license tests are available in only nine languages. Examiners must arrange for translators for customers who read primarily in French, Farsi, Bengali and other common languages.
“I know some states have all the languages you can possibly think of on their computers,” Tanika Williams, the senior examiner at the East Raleigh office, told Tine. “If we had that, it would make life so much easier.”
Tine acknowledges a sense of urgency from lawmakers, Gov. Josh Stein and the public to improve the DMV. The N.C. Department of Transportation has hired a consulting firm to recommend changes, and State Auditor Dave Boliek, who launched a review of the agency’s operations this winter, has said he will provide some suggestions soon, Tine said.
Already coming, he said, are changes to DMV’s website to make clearer when people need to visit a driver’s license office and when they don’t and to better explain what documents people need to get a REAL ID. He has also requested that NCDOT’s summer interns be assigned to the DMV and asked employees throughout the agency if they’d be willing to greet customers at driver’s license offices.
“It’s an all-hands on deck time right now,” he said. “I want people to really understand that these are the most important people in the organization.”
For a Q&A with Tine, go to bit.ly/3YDXCTW.
This story was originally published May 13, 2025 at 6:00 AM with the headline "NC’s new DMV commissioner says he likes a challenge. He sure has one now.."
