THe Newest DPS Excuse

[03Lightningrocks]

My CHL is due to expire in three years. Think I should go ahead and send in the renewal info now?

All kidding aside, this wait period has just gotten silly. Many are waiting 5 months and longer. It wasn't that long ago that folks would tell us not to get upset if it went over sixty days, that we should be understanding. Then the level was reduced again to ninety days...then 120 days... good night nurse. At what point exactly is it considered acceptable to be upset by the wait? A year....two years? That is where it is headed. They know they can just cook up an excuse and continue to work at government worker speed.

[fingerprintguy]

This is not what everyone wants to hear, but Hurricane Ike did take a toll on DPS and their resources. Three of the F.A.S.T. locations in the affected area have not even reopened. Voluntary civilian applications will always take a back seat to Public Safety/ State mandated fingerprinting requirements. All of the prints normally submitted electronically by those locations are now being submitted by traditional inked cards.

As far as the F.A.S.T. is concerned, it is my understanding that DPS would like ALL fingerprints to be submitted electronically. This cannot happen with the number of current authorized F.A.S.T. locations. Electronic submission will reduce the number of rejections for bad prints, but I am told people are having a hard time getting appointments. Imagine having to wait several weeks just to get an appointment to have your prints taken then go through the process you are experiencing now. A guy in Hurst, TX told me he had a scheduled appointment but still had to wait two hours once he got there.

Best of luck

[stevie_d_64]

Actually when you get right down to it...

Ike didn't touch Austin...And the mail service wasn't effected too much by the storm either...

If you want an objective opinion (yer gonna get it anyway, so sit down and enjoy it!!! )...

The amount of applications and packets coming into Austin is backlogging the system and personnel working in that particular office... Like DoubleJ said, and Charles last year explained to us that an assessment was made and some things were obviously discovered...Whether the solutions were implemented will only be evident in the reduction of time it takes to process the license obviously...

The other thing is I am elated that there is a boom of applications and packets being sent to them...Thats good for everybody, regardless...

All you can do is make sure you have all of your ducks in a row before you send it off to the DPS office...

I don't enjoy the wait either, my first renewal years ago took 17 days, mailbox to mailbox...Since then it has always been the maximum time alotted per the rules...

The next solution is getting an out of state non-resident permit that overlaps the Texas CHL, and that you can carry on if there are delays in processing your homestate license...I recommend Utah...There are a few instructors here that can accomodate you in that regard..."Crossfire" is the first one to jump out at me about the Utah permit...

[Oldgringo]

It's an election year. Contact everybody in government in Austin as well as your Senator and Representative. They all wanted the job so that they could help us.

Isn't that what they said?

[brianko]

The next solution is getting an out of state non-resident permit that overlaps the Texas CHL, and that you can carry on if there are delays in processing your homestate license...I recommend Utah...There are a few instructors here that can accomodate you in that regard..."Crossfire" is the first one to jump out at me about the Utah permit...

If you already have a valid Texas CHL, and are waiting for a renewal and want to make sure you have overlap, it's much easier and cheaper to simply get a PA non-res permit. $26, a simple one-page form and photocopy of CHL to the PA county of your choice, in your hands in two weeks.

[brianko]

As far as the F.A.S.T. is concerned, it is my understanding that DPS would like ALL fingerprints to be submitted electronically.

Given your nick, I'm sure you already knew this, but just in case others did not: F.A.S.T. does not submit anything to DPS on your behalf, electronically or otherwise. The only thing that F.A.S.T. does is renders a fingerprint card with digital imprints. The idea here is that the rejection rate for F.A.S.T. cards is much lower than with inked prints. You still have to send DPS a fingerprint card (or possibly two), and it is still possible for F.A.S.T. cards to be rejected (although I would think you'd have to have a pretty inept operator for this to happen, since the computer "grades" each print before it's printed to the card).

[srothstein]

And for those who are interested, look at the DPS overhaul recommendations. They recommend a restructuring into two basic divisions. One would be all law enforcement offices and one would be all other services, such as driver's licenses and CHL's. And they stressed that they need to make the non-law enforcement division much more customer friendly. If the recommendations are adopted, look for CHL processing to get much better in the next two years. I also hope to see evening and weekend DL office hours, since most customers work during the weekday that they are now open.

I wanted to see something about the law enforcement side becoming more customer friendly also, but they did not say that.


EDIT: I was beat to it by another thread. Check here: http://www.texasshooting.com/TexasCHL_F ... =7&t=19786" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[stevie_d_64]

I wanted to see something about the law enforcement side becoming more customer friendly also, but they did not say that.

Whatever do you mean???

"...excuse me sir, beautiful day, nice car! Do you know why I pulled you over??? Drivers license, Registration and proof of insurance...Please..."

And if I recall, those contacts are being recorded for quality assurance purposes...

Sorry, just had to be a pill about this one...I know...I am really a pain sometimes...My customer service skills lack tactfullness...Ask anybody...

[stevie_d_64]

The next solution is getting an out of state non-resident permit that overlaps the Texas CHL, and that you can carry on if there are delays in processing your homestate license...I recommend Utah...There are a few instructors here that can accomodate you in that regard..."Crossfire" is the first one to jump out at me about the Utah permit...

If you already have a valid Texas CHL, and are waiting for a renewal and want to make sure you have overlap, it's much easier and cheaper to simply get a PA non-res permit. $26, a simple one-page form and photocopy of CHL to the PA county of your choice, in your hands in two weeks.

Yep, NH is about the same way...Had one of those for a while...But there are some factors about the Utah CHP that helped me to justify the effort and expense...

[Liberty]

And for those who are interested, look at the DPS overhaul recommendations. They recommend a restructuring into two basic divisions. One would be all law enforcement offices and one would be all other services, such as driver's licenses and CHL's. And they stressed that they need to make the non-law enforcement division much more customer friendly. If the recommendations are adopted, look for CHL processing to get much better in the next two years. I also hope to see evening and weekend DL office hours, since most customers work during the weekday that they are now open.

I wanted to see something about the law enforcement side becoming more customer friendly also, but they did not say that.


EDIT: I was beat to it by another thread. Check here: http://www.texasshooting.com/TexasCHL_F ... =7&t=19786" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As bad as it is, and we all know there is room for improvement. Any government agency in Texas is better than just about any other agency in another state or the federal government. They really try to be friendly and helpful.

[03Lightningrocks]

As bad as it is, and we all know there is room for improvement. Any government agency in Texas is better than just about any other agency in another state or the federal government. They really try to be friendly and helpful.

Your basicly right, but it is hard to be understanding if you have been waiting for 5 months to get your CHL.

[Excaliber]

Yep, NH is about the same way...Had one of those for a while...But there are some factors about the Utah CHP that helped me to justify the effort and expense...

What were the other factors that made the UT permit more worthwhile?