CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — The state of West Virginia continued working on resolving a computer systems outage Thursday that is affecting residents’ access to services at several state agencies, including the Division of Motor Vehicles.
West Virginia Department of Administration officials announced Wednesday afternoon that it is experiencing a mainframe outage caused by equipment failure at its data center. Officials said the state Office of Technology has ordered the parts needed to repair the hardware, but they don’t know how long the outage will last.
Division of Motor Vehicles Commissioner Everett Frazier said Thursday the outage is affecting the Division of Motor Vehicles’ ability to provide many of its services such as title work and driver record updates. But he said the agency’s offices are still open to the public.
“We are answering questions, reviewing documents and helping customers the best we can until the mainframe is repaired,” he said.
Frazier said customers can still use the agency’s online portal to renew car registration and driver’s licenses.
“Additionally, these two services are available at all of our kiosk locations across the state,” Frazier said in a statement.
Department of Health and Human Resources officials said the outage has prevented it from being able to process applications for government programs through its public assistance portal, WV PATH. Residents use the portal to apply for programs like Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and SNAP benefits.
During the outage, residents can still submit applications and renewals, but requests can’t be processed until the outage is resolved.
House Technology and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Del. Daniel Linville said the state has been working for several years to transition all state mainframe systems to external servers that can provide more network backup — and return from outages faster. The state currently owns and houses all of the hardware for its mainframe operations, the Republican lawmaker said.
“The fix to avoid this from ever happening again is already in the works,” he said.