The Monday morning malfunction of a City and County of Honolulu mainframe computer has become a statewide problem for anyone seeking to obtain or renew a driver’s license, register a motor vehicle or get a state identification card.
“As the statewide database, this computer issue is … impacting driver licensing centers in Hawaii County, Kauai County and Maui County, and we ask for the patience of those residents … ,” Sheri Kajiwara, director of the Department of Customer Services for the City and County of Honolulu, said in a written statement.
According to a subsequent statement issued Tuesday, “The problem stemmed from the compatibility between newly installed mainframe hardware and existing software.”
Naomi O’Dell, who’s in charge of driver licensing and vehicle registration for the Hawaii County Department of Finance, said offices in Hilo, Kona, Waimea, Pahoa and Ka‘u have been mostly unable to serve customers since the start of business Monday.
“When the staff came in, it was very slow. … It was taking longer than normal to log in,” O’Dell said Tuesday afternoon. “And then, when they were trying to process (transactions), to switch screens was taking a very long time. And then, some people got locked out. And I think it went down at 8:30 (a.m.) or so.”
A steady trickle of people attempted to renew their vehicle registrations during lunchtime Tuesday at Aupuni Center in Hilo, but were politely turned away.
It’s unclear how long it will take to resume full operations for those seeking driver’s licenses, vehicle registration and state IDs. The City and County of Honolulu said that, for today, it “will continue to perform scheduled road tests and walk-ins as appropriate, but all other services will be unavailable.”
“If this thing continues, we are going to grant extensions … for anything that’s got a deadline,” said Janet Snyder, spokeswoman for Big Island Mayor Harry Kim.
“We’re just all anxious to start servicing people,” O’Dell added. “This is the end of the month, so it’s an especially busy time for us.”