Top Transportation Officials to Testify on Mass. RMV Failures

BOSTON — Seven witnesses, including top transportation officials in the Baker administration are set to testify Monday about the failure to process multiple out-of-state driver violation notices at the Registry of Motor Vehicles.

The Joint Committee on Transportation will host a 10:00 a.m. oversight hearing in Gardner Auditorium to investigate "management and record-keeping issues" at the RMV and its Merit Rating Board, which is responsible for tracking violations.

While announcing the resignation of former Registrar Erin Deveney, officials this month revealed that the RMV had not processed tens of thousands of warnings from other states about driver infractions, and after working through the backlog, the registry suspended licenses of more than 1,600 drivers.

"I am as eager as anyone to understand what happened and assign responsibilty and we will do that," Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack said on July 5, asserting that officials were focusing on safety and license suspensions before recreating a timeline to determine "who knew what and when they knew it."

The committee wants to hear from Pollack along with RMV Acting Registrar Jamey Tesler; former Registrar Deveney; Driver Control Unit Director Keith Constantino; Merit Rating Board Director Thomas Bowes; either Maggie Gleason of Fast Enterprises LLC, which is installing a new records management system, or the project lead for the ATLAS system assisting that effort; and the project lead for auditing firm Grant Thornton's examination of the RMV.