The Wright County License Bureau has opened its public counter this morning (June 4) and the office has been flooded with calls from residents trying to schedule an appointment only to learn that the initial run for appointments has been filled.
License Bureau Supervisor Becky Aanerud said that the schedule for appointments is going to be released in two-week increments and the system isn’t built to accept appointments beyond Friday, June 19.
“What’s happening is people are hitting the scheduling button and looking for any available spots and keep hitting it,” Aanerud said. “It has taken some of them as far as December and it’s telling them there is no availability. The reason that is happening is because we only set the schedule out two weeks.”
She estimated that, in the first hour the License Bureau was open this morning, her office received approximately 100 calls.
Because this is a new venture for the License Bureau, required by Minnesota Department of Health guidelines for social distancing, the plan is to use the first week of appointments to determine whether the current scheduling timeline of 20 minutes per appointment is the appropriate amount of time or if some scheduling can be dropped to 15 minutes in between appointments.
Under the current scheduling system, the office can accommodate 63 appointments per day. If it is deemed through the experience of the first week of operation that the number can be dropped to 15 minutes, the daily number would climb to 84 per day.
Aanerud asks that residents be patient because the appointment system can only take 315 appointments per week at the current pace and that those whose licenses have expired have until Aug. 31 to get their licenses updated without a penalty.
“If you’re attempting to make an appointment online, we’re totally booked through the 19th,” Aanerud said. “Please check back on or about June 12th. We’re only releasing two weeks at a time and the next round will be from June 21st to July 2nd. This is a new system and we’re looking at how to most efficiently set the timing for appointments. If we can find ways to add more, we will.”