Service first

The patronage system of awarding Missouri's license offices to political supporters and friends of whoever sits in the governor's office has long been a thorn to many political observers. For the thousands of Missourians who visit these offices every year to get or renew driver's licenses and auto tags, however, the most important thing is service and the length of the line of folks waiting to be helped.

A group of Republican legislators last week traveled around the state proposing changes that would end the patronage, require the offices to be operated by local governments or not-for-profit organizations, limit annual salaries and grant review authority to the state auditor.

Keep in mind that when Gov. Matt Blunt took office and privatized 11 license offices, including large operations in St. Louis and Kansas City, the overall cost of operations went down dramatically.

While the notion of patronage is distasteful to many voters and taxpayers, any change in the way license offices are run should be based on good service and cost efficiency. It's not clear that last week's proposed changes would necessarily accomplish that.

If legislators want to make constituents happy, they would be looking at how license offices provide their services and how convenient they are for Missourians. Are they open on Saturdays? Are they open in the evening for the convenience of daytime workers? Are they adequately staffed to avoid long waits? Are the workers properly trained, both in the intricacies of state rules and regulations and the art of dealing with grumpy customers? Are they staffed to provide help and information on the telephone or by e-mail? Are the offices conveniently located?

And can all of these services be provided at a reasonable cost? If not-for-profit organizations are the most economical provider of these services, fine. But so far there is little documentation to demonstrate who would look after the best interests of license-office customers at the lowest and fairest cost to Missouri's taxpayers.