CHL Delay

[crosssection]

Alice Tripp had an informative article on the CHL process in the May/June issue of the TSRA Sportsman. Based on her information and my own personal experience, I concluded that, since January 2008, the DPS CHL approval process for perfect applications is slipping about 2 weeks for every calendar month forward. That is, 1 Jan applicants got their licenses about 1 April, 1 Mar applicants got theirs about 1 Jul, 1 May applicants will get theirs about 1 Oct, etc. So, for every 2 months forward since January, add another (that's one more) month to the approval process.

If you have an application returned for further information, then expect your applicaton clock to be restarted. I know of one application returned for new fingerprint cards (It took 3 months for the DPS to send the notification), so I expect the original 1 March application to restart 1 July and license issuance somewhere around 1 Jan 2009.

These delays should concern those who are submitting renewal applications to meet the 5-year deadline. It appears that submitting 6 months in advance will not cut it anymore. For someone needing renewal by 1 Jan 2010, my projection is that the application should be in DPS hands no later than 1 Apr 2009.