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As you are aware, Senate Bill 604, enacted by the 86th Legislature, amended Transportation Code, Section 520.005 by adding Subsection (e).  This new subsection requires each county tax assessor-collector to make webDEALER available to any licensed motor vehicle dealers (“dealers”) requesting access effective September 1, 2020.

As a reminder, the department previously posted “Getting Started with webDEALER” and “Using webDEALER” videos at www.TxDMV.gov to assist county tax assessor-collectors and dealers:

• The county tax assessor-collector version is available on the TAC Hub under the “Webinars & Presentations” tab or https://www.txdmv.gov/tax-assessor-collectors?tab=webinarspresentations. 
• The dealer version is available on the Dealers portal under the “webDEALER” tab or https://www.txdmv.gov/dealers?tab=webdealer. 

In an effort to ensure all county tax assessor-collector’s offices are ready for this requirement, the department worked with each county to ensure webDEALER access.  Currently, the department’s 16 Regional Service Center Managers are providing webDEALER training to the county tax assessor-collector’s offices who have not previously or not recently utilized webDEALER.

The Texas dealer associations are aware of this new requirement and may notify their members.  This may result in your offices receiving inquiries related to webDEALER access.  County tax assessor-collector’s offices receiving inquiries from dealers requesting webDEALER access may utilize the dealer version of “Getting Started with webDEALER” video as a resource.  While granting webDEALER access is required, Transportation Code, Section 520.005(e), does not mandate or impact who counties deputize as dealer deputies nor county established dealer deputy requirements.  Deputizing a dealer remains at the sole discretion of the county tax assessor-collector’s office.

The department’s webDEALER project team, charged with making programming enhancements to webDEALER, continues their work to address previous enhancement requests made by county tax assessor-collectors and dealers currently utilizing webDEALER.  The first release is currently scheduled for August 31.  Additional enhancements are currently scheduled for release in December 2020.

While the requirement to provide webDEALER access to dealers who make a request is not effective until September 1, 2020, there is no prohibition against granting authorization prior to this date.  The department encourages you to begin utilizing webDEALER as soon as you are ready.

Thank you,

Jeremiah Kuntz, Director
Vehicle Titles and Registration Division
Texas Department of Motor Vehicles

If you have any questions concerning this communication, please contact your local TxDMV Regional Service Center.

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As you are aware, Senate Bill 604, enacted by the 86th Legislature, added Transportation Code, Section 520.023.  The legislation required the department to implement a training program on the department’s automated registration and titling system and identification of fraudulent activity related to vehicle registration and titling.  This program went into effect on December 16, 2019, with the implementation of Registration and Title System (RTS) Release 9.5.

All required training must be completed and reported to the department by August 31, 2020.  Any user who does not complete training and have it reported to the department by August 31 will lose all RTS permissions associated with the required modules effective September 1.  The department does not have the authority under state law or administrative code, nor the ability in RTS, to extend the August 31 deadline.

As of August 10, a total of 141,333 modules have been completed in the eLearning Center and reported through RTS to the department.  While this is a tremendous success, there are 20,447 additional modules which must be completed and reported by August 31, 2020.  The department’s Regional Service Center Managers have been, and will continue to be, in contact with county tax assessor-collectors on a weekly basis if there are users in the county with training that remains to be completed to retain existing RTS security permissions. 

The department encourages you to run the Expiration Report located in the Cognos eLearning Reports folder, as this report will identify specific employees and the specific eLearning modules that have not yet been reported to the department.  For guidance on generating the report, please review the RTS 9.5 Release Notes.

The department requests your assistance with the following if you have users appearing on your Expiration Report, and the user is not:

• employed with the county tax assessor-collector’s office anymore – please delete the RTS user profile.
• utilizing RTS and/or not planning to retain RTS access – please delete the RTS user profile.  Note: Expiring permissions do not result in the RTS profile being deleted, only access being disabled.  The user will continue to appear on RTS-related reports until the RTS profile is deleted.
• utilizing the assigned RTS permission(s) – please remove the applicable permission(s).

As a reminder, all county training program related materials, including the RTS 9.5 Release Notes and eLearning Center Job Aid, are located on the TAC Hub under the “County Training” tab or https://www.txdmv.gov/tax-assessor-collectors?tab=countytraining.

Thank you,

Jeremiah Kuntz, Director
Vehicle Titles and Registration Division
Texas Department of Motor Vehicles

If you have any questions concerning this communication, please contact your local TxDMV Regional Service Center.

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This is a follow‐up to the communication sent on June 30, 2020, regarding issues identified with county closure transactions.

The COGNOS Funds Remittance Report has been updated to include detailed reporting of county closure transactions. The report is available today; however, it will not have data until Tuesday after transactions from today are processed overnight. On August 11th, the report will contain the first full weeks’ worth of data.

We appreciate your patience while we resolved this issue.

Thank you,

Jeremiah Kuntz, Director
Vehicle Titles and Registration Division
Texas Department of Motor Vehicles

If you have any questions concerning this communication, please contact your local TxDMV Regional Service Center.

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Registration and Title System (RTS) Release 9.7.1 was deployed last weekend and included an enhancement for specialty license plate orders processed by the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles’ (TxDMV) Special Plates Unit.  The enhancement inadvertently introduced a defect in RTS Point of Sale (POS) that requires you to enter the customer’s email address on the special plate record when the email field is blank.  RTS POS should not require entry of an email address on a special plate record. 

We are working to resolve the defect and will notify you when it has been fixed.  Until such time a fix can be deployed, please enter the customer’s email address on the special plates record when prompted.  If the customer is unable or unwilling to supply an email address, you should enter “sp@txdmv.gov” when RTS POS prompts for entry of an email address on the special plate record.

Thank you,

Jeremiah Kuntz, Director
Vehicle Titles and Registration Division
Texas Department of Motor Vehicles

If you have any questions concerning this communication, please contact your local TxDMV Regional Service Center.

Please review and distribute as appropriate.

The Texas Department of Motor Vehicles is previewing one new vendor license plate, Zeta Phi Beta. We offer you the opportunity to provide input on this license plate.

Please visit us at the following link to provide your comments no later than 5:00 p.m., August 1, 2020.

http://www.txdmv.gov/motorists/license-plates/eview

The department will review and consider all input received. 

Thank you,

Jeremiah Kuntz, Director
Vehicle Titles and Registration Division
Texas Department of Motor Vehicles

If you have any questions concerning this communication, please contact your local TxDMV Regional Service Center.