BMV blames mail services company for plate delay

INDIANAPOLIS -- State officials, who originally took responsibility for botching the license plate renewals of more than 200,000 Indiana motorists, are now blaming a mail services company.\nBureau of Motor Vehicles Commissioner Gerald B. Coleman shifted the blame Friday to SmartMail Services, which it tapped to sort vehicle registration renewal mail and deliver it to the U.S. Postal Service.\nBMV spokeswoman Michelle Swain said the Atlanta, Ga.-based company was apparently unable to keep up with a record-breaking number of online vehicle registration renewal orders.\n"We have an extraordinarily large mail load, and I am just guessing they may have had problems keeping up with us," Swain said.\nMessages seeking comment from SmartMail officials were left Saturday at SmartMail's corporate headquarters in Atlanta, Ga.\nMore than 200,000 of the 500,000 plate renewals submitted in January were mailed late, putting motorists at risk of being pulled over and cited by police.\nBMV officials said its dealings with SmartMail were intended to save taxpayers up to $100,000 a year by lowering the cost of sorting the hundreds of thousands of plates mailed to Hoosier motorists.\nBut in a strange twist, the BMV says it cannot tell what the value of the SmartMail agreement was because, apparently, it did not actually have a contract with the company.\nInstead, its services were billed through BMV's regular mail processing contractor, an Indianapolis company called Post Masters whose labor force is comprised of people with mental and physical disabilities.\nState law generally requires large purchases to go through a procedure of seeking bids or proposals from multiple vendors.\nGary Johnloz, general manager of Post Masters, told The Indianapolis Star he set up a meeting last year between SmartMail and BMV during which BMV officials said it wanted to use SmartMail's services.\n"BMV asked if we could run this through our contract. They wanted to start saving money," he said. "... But it didn't turn out that way."\nJohnloz said he now feels as if his firm, which also provides mail services for many other state agencies, including the Family and Social Services Administration, the Department of Administration and the Department of Revenue, is caught in the middle.\nThe deal called for Post Masters to charge the state 1.8 cents per piece of mail sorted beginning in January, on behalf of SmartMail. In December, the post office charged BMV 2.2 cents for sorting services.\nSwain said she did not know how many pieces of mail were processed in January.\nShe said a BMV investigation Friday found that BMV employees at a mail processing center on Indianapolis' west side had all its plates ready for sorting and shipping at least 10 days before any of the expiration dates.\nUnder normal circumstances, it would take four days for them to be delivered to motorists. \nInstead, it was taking nine to 12 days.\nA memo sent last week from the BMV to police departments across the state said the staff was running behind issuing new plates and asked for leniency on drivers stopped with expired tags.