The Colorado Division of Motor Vehicles is becoming more efficient and less time consuming for customers, according to an audit released on Wednesday.

In 2021, Colorado’s 35 state-run driver’s license offices reached their goal of completing at least 75% of customer transactions within 30 minutes, the Office of the State Auditor found.

Those offices completed customer transactions within 30 minutes 84% of the time, with the average transaction length being around 19 minutes.

This achievement was reached in spite of a system error that caused the DMV to miscalculate the transaction times of 4% of customers, overstating those wait times by an average of 23 minutes each. 

“When the division uses inaccurate data to monitor the timeliness of state offices, the division may dedicate more resources to an office that appears untimely when it actually meets the timeliness goal, so the system error should be fixed,” said Audit Manager Jenny Page.

While the DMV met its efficiency goal, it failed to meet its goal of increasing customer use of online self-service options by 2.5% from fiscal year 2021 to 2022. The DMV’s online performance stood between 2.9% and 8.4% below its goal, depending on the month, according to the audit.

The audit also found that the DMV over-reported the use of it online services from July to December 2021, overstating its progress toward its goal by 1%.

The Office of the State Auditor recommended that the DMV revise its methodology for reporting performance outcomes, as well as resolve the error that resulted in over-calculated customer wait times. The DMV agreed to implement all recommendations.