(This article comes courtesy of MissouriNet, via Marshall Griffin.)
A Missouri House committee is considering a bill designed to keep driver’s license offices open in rural areas. The sponsor, State Sen. Sandy Crawford, R-Buffalo, described the challenge rural counties face to keep license offices open.
“Our Missouri license offices operate under contracts that are awarded through a competitive bidding process,” she told the Mo. House Commerce Committee. “In the rural areas, we often fail to attract bidders, and this leaves the Department of Revenue with two options – rebid the contract or permanently close the office.”
Crawford’s bill, SB 1020, would allow the Department of Revenue to select a qualified vendor without rebidding if the state does not receive any bids from anyone qualified to run a license office.
“I’ve actually had this be a circumstance in my own district before,” she said. “There have been, I believe, license offices that have had to be bid, like, up to five times across the state. There are several, many that have been bid more than once. So, I think this is a cost savings.”
Department of Revenue Director Trish Vincent supports the bill. She testified during last week’s House hearing that it’s getting harder to obtain bids from qualified vendors.
“Many times I reach out to the senators and representatives saying, ‘Can you find somebody in the area? We’d really like to keep this office open,’” Vincent said. “The most recent one was in Lamar, and we just got that awarded. We had to close it temporarily because the agent just decided that they were going to retire and not want it anymore.”
She said Crawford’s bill would provide options while insuring any new license office vendors would be qualified to run them.
“If we’re having difficulty (finding a vendor), that way we can reach out to a reputable organization, like a chamber, or the city or the county, and work with them so that we have those offices in the local communities that we can continue to serve,” Vincent said.
The House Commerce Committee has not yet scheduled a vote on the proposal.
Missouri’s 2026 legislative session ends May 15.
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