TexasCHLforum.com

BigBlueDodge wrote:So I'm sitting in my recliner catching up on some of my recorded shows on my DVR when I get a call on my cell phone. Answer it, and a guy announces that he is calling from DPS and that he needs more information for my application. My heart sunk as I thought my app has been sitting for however long and is just now getting processed. Well, long story short, at day 65 I sent my State Representative an email announcing my displeasure with DPS not meeting their deadlines. I got nothing but an automated response from her office thanking me for the email, but saying that she couldn't reply to every email. After 2 weeks of not hearing anything from her, I just assumed that she wasn't sympathetic to gun owner's. Well, evidentally her office contacted DPS on my behalf, and thus I got the call today (on a Saturday) from a person at DPS. He was calling to say that he didn't have enough information, that was provided from the State Representative, to check on my application. He needed my TX DL, SSN or some other ID to find me. After hearing that, my fears of my application sitting partially entered, needing more information, quickly went away. Once I gave him the additional information, he looked up my application and said it was COMPLETE, that it was just in the queue to be mailed out



He said that all of the checks came back, license was printed and that it just needed to be sent to the mailroom to get sent out. Since he had in in his hands, he said he was going to make sure it was put in the stack to get mailed out first of next week! He even gave me his name, and personal phone number, and told me to call him if I didn't receive it in a week. That means that total time from packet received to application complete is 72 days + however long it takes for mail to get to me!

Since I had him on the phone, I took the opportunity to discuss some topics that we talk about quite frequently on this forum. These are some topics that we discussed, and I wanted to share

1. Called on Saturday - I was very surprised to get called on Saturday from the DPS. They are a government office, which works Monday - Friday. Seems as though, due to the back log, they are coming in on Saturday to try and catch up. This tells me that the people actually doing the work are trying their best to get things done. No one should be questing their work ethics. From the conversations I've had, they are working long hours to keep up. Don't condemn the workers for a management problem.

2. They are getting more workers!! - The group has grown quite significantly. As many of you know, they had hired about 12 additional workers for data entry back in the May/June timeframe if I remember correctly. Many of you stated that they should hire more. Well, as it turns out, they couldn't because they didn't have no where to put them (they are out of space). They were able to secure another building and have 20 more workers starting on Monday. That should help considerably.

3. "They cashed my check in a week, but didn't start processing the app until 2 months later". This is a common complaint on the boards. Many are frustrated that DPS is quick to open their application and cash the check but then just throw the application back into the pile. Well, I asked about this and here is what was told to me. Any DPS application (CHL or not) that contains money is sent to the "Cash Receiving" department first. This department is responsible for clearing funds. Once funds have been cleared, the application is evidentally "stamped" and sent to the ultimate department responsible for processing the application (be it CHL, DL renewals, etc). The CHL department will not handle any application that has not been stamped by cash receiving department. So in fact, it's not the CHL department cashing your money, as everyone believes. It's a totally seperate department. This also explains why applications can't be initially checked for completeness when the money is cleared, because the group that clears funds is not part of the CHL group, does not know what is/isn't complete.

4. Big changes in 2009 - It looks like the current backlog has brought to light many issues with the current processes and systems needed to handle CHL app's. The person indicated that there is alot of change being worked on to address things such as the CHL status web site, the online application process, the license printing process, and internal processes. Understandably, this person did not want to give details, but he confirmed that there are big changes coming for next year to be more efficient.

5. License Printing - One reason of the backlog earlier on was in the actual license printing. Once all of your checks were received, and everything looked good, then your license was sent to get printed. Evidentally DPS contracts with a 3rd party company to do the actual printing, and this company was slow to respond. The DPS person said that it would take weeks once they requested a license, before they recieved it from the 3rd party company, thus adding to the wait. They have changed the process, for the interim, to go ahead and pre-request the license to be printed before the checks are completed so that there is no additional delay. However, this is an interim process, and and will be used for the short term. They are going to work with the 3rd party company to get the time down to 1-2 days from they time they request the license to when it is completed, and will eventually go back to the model where licenses are only printed after all background checks have been confirmed.

6. Background Checks - While talking to the person, he indicated that my Tarrant County and Dallas County background checks had been received. I scratched my head on that, because I do not live in Dallas County, and wasn't quite sure why they were looking in Dallas County. After a minute, it hit me. My work address is in Dallas County (just barely). He indicated that ANY addresses you list on your application, they will request background checks from all of the counties listed, whether it is for work, home, or school, they check it. He indicated that these County checks are the biggest source of delays, as they take the longest amount of time. There's nothing DPS can do, but wait for them to come in. So, it seems to me, that everyone needs to be putting pressure on their local county authorities to be more efficient on processing the background checks.

7. Studen Loan, Child Support, Back taxes... - The DPS person indicated that right now these checks aren't as smooth as they would like them, and there is alot of manual intervention required to do this. He indicated that they are looking to automate these checks, and have already started meeting with the departments (Attorney General, etc) to start the conversations on how to automate. Again, this would be something that would be targeted for 2009, however.

8. Contacting State Representatives & Cutting in Line - I asked him that more and more people are contacting their state representatives in frustration of the wait times. I asked him if by doing this, do those people get any special attention/priority. His response was yes & no. If DPS is contacted by State Representatives, they are required to provide status back to the State Representative office. However, they also like to contact the CHL applicant who initiated the request out of courtesy. Now depending on where you are in the process, you may get some additional help. The DPS person said that he has to take time away from processing applications to handle State Rep requests. He said that if they haven't gotten to your application yet (meaning it's still in the pile), then most likely not much will change in your processing time. He stated he wasn't going to go dig through a pile of 2000-3000 applications to find yours, when he could have processed 50-100 other applications in the same time. He said he just responds back that it's being processed. Now, if you application is beyond that, (meaning someone has actually taken it out of the pile and started working on it) then the State Rep request may help you out. For example, if DPS has the other background checks completed (such as FBI and taxes, child support) but is still waiting on your county checks, then there isn't much they can do. It's out of their hands. If the application is held up at an internal stage, for example if your FBI prints have not been sent off yet, they can move your prints up to the top of the stack on the person's desk, and ensure they get sent off. How they can help, in response to State Representative requests, is dependant on where exactly your application process is. In my case, contacting my state representative maybe bought me a 1 or 2 day quicker license. My application had already been complete, everything was done and it was in the queue to sent to the mail room. The only thing that changed by contacting the state rep, was that the person was going to make sure that it was in the pile that got processed on Monday, which may or may not have happened. This was essentially a 0-3 day benefit to me. My take away is that contacting your State Rep does help, but maybe not to the degree that many think. It may shave off 0-5 days total, but not weeks as some would suggest. However, this person said that the number of people contacting their State Rep's has been helpful, as it's allowed them to get more funding, and bring on additional folks.

9. Current Backlog Shrinkage - He indicated that with the additional 20 people, that they are trying to shrink the current backlog in the next 30 days and get caught to a normal pace. This is good news for people submitting their applications in the August / September timeframe, as they might be able to expect a more normal cycle. Personally, I think we are already seeing the shrinkage. I'm seeing more and more people getting their license in the 80 day timeframe, than the 90-120 timeframe that was all too common. My timeframe was 72 days from app received to application compete, not counting mail delivery times. Hopefully this downward trend will continue.

10. Online vs Paper Application - I asked him about is submitting an online application is better than submitting a paper application. In his opinion, he said that it didn't really help. He didn't state it directly, but hinted that they still have to re-enter in your information from the online application into the other systems, so there is still data entry involved. Also, he would give details, but he said the there is current issues/problems that they are having to deal with when using online apps, as it isn't as "smooth" as they would like it. I don't think he was trying to tell me that one method was better than the other, but indicated that in the current state, there is no significant difference between the two in overall processing times.

My take away from the conversation, is that the people doing the work genuinely are trying their best to process your applications. They are working late, and on the weekends to keep up. My only suggestion to you guys is to keep that in mind when you call in. It's not their fault that your application is behind, it is the fault of the system. I think these poor guys are being worked to death, and then to have customers call in to gripe and yell out them is only making life more miserable. Quite frankly, I don't understand how they don't have more turnover than what they have. I mean honestly, how do you try and convince a person to come in, work like a dog, get yelled at, be complained at for $10.50 an hour?

Second, try and minimize the number of calls for status while you are still in the 60 day timeframe. Time spent handling your questions, is time taken away from processing applications. If you are going to bring your state representative in, bring them in after 60 days. The reason is that once DPS recieves a request from a state representative, they have to stop what they are doing, go find out what is happening, and provide a response for the state representative. I waited until 65 days to contact mine, as I wanted to give them the 60 day limit, plus a bit of a buffer in the slight chance they had completed it by 60 days and it was being mailed.

I appreciate the time and effort this guy spent answering my questions. We talked for approximately 45 minutes and never once did he try and cut the conversation short to get me off the phone. He was very courteous, and offered quite detailed responses to my questions. I will not post his name, as I'm not sure if he told me "too" much and I don't want to get him in trouble if he did.

Anyway, I hope this helps. In the mean time, I will be anxiously waiting for my plastic sometime next week.