More than a quarter of the employees at the state Division of Motor Vehicles' headquarters are not following their jobs to Rocky Mount, and that number is expected to rise, according to a report DMV Commissioner Torre Jessup delivered Thursday to the legislature's transportation oversight committee.
The current vacancy rate for the 500 positions moving to Rocky Mount headquarters is 27 percent, compared with 17 percent for the DMV overall.
Other WRAL Top Stories
The longtime DMV headquarters on New Bern Avenue in Raleigh was found to have asbestos contamination, so the agency was ordered to find a new location, and state lawmakers required the DMV to take the lowest bid offered. That offer came from Rocky Mount, about an hour east of Raleigh.
The deal received final approval from lawmakers and the Council of State in the spring of 2019, and the move was to be completed by the end of 2020.
On Thursday, Jessup told lawmakers that, despite some delays, the move is underway and should be completed by spring, but many workers have chosen not to go.
Over the past 18 months, he said, many Raleigh-based workers who were eligible to retire decided to do so rather than move or commute to Rocky Mount. Others, mostly in the lowest-paid jobs at around $30,000 a year, have found other jobs.
Most of the vacancies are in administrative back-office jobs at DMV, where paperwork is processed for titles, license plates and driver's licenses.
Jessup said the agency is using temporary staff for now to keep operations running and is recruiting aggressively in the Rocky Mount area to get those positions filled permanently.
However, he expects to see additional workers quit over the next few months as they start to make the commute.
"Some employees, they're going to find it to be challenging" in terms of expense and distance, Jessup said. "We’ll see some of those employees find other opportunities more quickly."