DENVER—State officials said Monday they are trying to determine what to do with a $10 million automobile registration computer system that doesn’t work.
The Colorado State Titling and Registration System, known as CSTARS, was designed to integrate many of the automobile registration, licensing and titling functions but was shut down when the Department of Revenue determined it was losing data, said Maren Rubino, director of the vehicle services division.
She told lawmakers that the state is relying on older computers to do the job. A contractor is studying the issue and a recommendation is expected within a few weeks.
“In a nutshell, the system is still not working,” said Rep. Buffy McFadyen, D-Pueblo West.
Sen. Ron May, R-Colorado Springs, who serves on the state’s technology committee, said the state has 19 agencies and four elected offices, each of which had its own computer system and provider. He said state computers need to be able to exchange data.
“The decision will have to be made, do you start over again or work with what you have now,” May said.
The issue is one of numerous problems that have plagued state computers over the past few years.
In February, Gov. Bill Ritter shut down the office set up to work out problems in the state’s welfare computer system, saying it was no longer necessary.
The $200 million system is responsible for processing welfare benefits that include Medicaid, food stamps and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. The Colorado Benefits Management System office was created in May 2005 after counties blamed it for causing a backlog of nearly 30,000 cases and the state was sued for failing to provide benefits.
Before the office was created, two departments—the Department of Human Services and the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing—oversaw the operation of the system. An executive order signed by Ritter requires those two departments to once again take on that job.
The state was also forced to cancel two major contracts—one for a computer system to manage unemployment insurance and another for voter registration—after the vendor failed to deliver.
