Pandemic boosts Maine BMV's online Rapid Renewal vehicle registration program
Photo / Maureen Milliken
The COVID-19 pandemic has boosted the state Bureau of Motor Vehicles's Rapid Renewal system, which allows residents to renew vehicle registrations and pay excise tax online.
The state's Rapid Renewal service, which allows vehicle owners to renew vehicle registrations online, has seen a huge surge in sign-ups since the COVID-19 pandemic began in March.
Rapid Renewal began with 10 pilot towns in 2001, and the rate of sign-ups has been about a dozen a year, sometimes as low as single digits, according to InforME, the state's e-government portal, which administers the program.
But when Bureau of Motor Vehicle offices and municipal offices across the state closed in March, Rapid Renewal got a shot in the arm. Since March 31, municipalities, the Passamaquoddy Tribal Government and Penobscot Nation have signed on, raising the number to participants to 292. The state has 488 municipalities.
“The pandemic has definitely been a motivator for towns to join Rapid Renewal, as it provides an easy way for their residents to take care of registrations without having to visit town hall or the BMV,” Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap told Mainebiz. “Extending this option to more Mainers is one of the few positive outcomes of the current situation, and it’s been well-received by the public.”
Residents in towns with Rapid Renewal can pay their registration fees online with a credit card or e-check. Mainers can still pay in person in town offices, but the online service offers an alternative. As of a week ago, 2,005,942 transactions had been done by Rapid Renewal since it was first made available, according to the BMV.
Having the public use Rapid Renewal takes some of the processing burden off the BMV and town hall staff, but the biggest benefit is to the registration holder, who can avoid waiting in line at multiple locations and can complete the transaction quickly and easily from home, according to the Secretary of State's Office.
The state doesn't market the service directly to the municipalities. "They are aware of it and can decide whether to enroll based on their own staffing concerns, desire to expand online services, or interest from their residents," said Kristen Muszynski, spokesman for the Secretary of State's Office.
Streamlining the process
InforME, which administers the service, is part of the NIC Inc. (Nasdaq: EGOV), a digital government service provider that serves 5,500 state, local and federal government agencies and has built 12,000 online services since it was founded in 1992. Maine was the 13th state to contract with NIC, in 1999.
InforME streamlined the process this spring to make it easier for municipal governments to get on board as interest increased. A company spokesperson said that a municipal support email was established, which filtered all requests. Then three staff members handled the business, one generating the contractual paperwork, one completing the financial setups and a third providing training.
Training was done via email, webinar and phone. Each town was shown the process by which they would provide the online service with registration and excise tax data and uploaded three months worth of that data.
"Once they felt comfortable with that, they were live for town residents to renew online," said the InforME spokesperson. "We streamlined the process so much so that towns could complete all onboarding steps within a couple of business days."
BMV was closed from March 17 to June 1 and has reopened for phone service and appointments only. Many town halls were closed or had limited hours during this period as well, so Rapid Renewal has been a particularly helpful online service during this time.
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