60 day clock, then what?

[tomneal]

So, what happens if the DPS takes longer than 60 days on your renewal?

Can you carry with your old license and your post office receipt?

[Crossfire]

Nope, sorry.

[tomneal]

Does the DPS face any penalties for Late renewals?

[Commander]

No penalties....If there were, what would they be?

[tomneal]

Penalties?

Loss of budget?



Of course
The real fix is "Alaska Carry".




Alaska Carry = Pack-em-if-you-got-em, get a license for reciprocity and firearm purchase reasons.

[Commander]

IMHO, part of the problem with slow licensing can be attributed to insufficent funding. Cutting funding would only aggrevate the situation.

I think that Charles has some ideas on streamlining CHL issuance that he will take to the legislature in January, Hopefully, these will be acted on and be in place on Sept 1, 2007 when the next fiscal year starts.

[Kalrog]

IMHO, part of the problem with slow licensing can be attributed to insufficent funding.

I believe this to be incorrect. The CHL department has a surplus and gives money back to the general fund every year. They could / should cut the cost of the CHL and make it an even process. NH is MUCH faster and cheaper and AK is really the way to go. AK + NH = no license needed, but if you want one you get it in 2 weeks for $20. Now that sounds about perfect.

[Commander]

How are you basing your information that the CHL section returns surplus money each year to the General Fund? Some of the various fees collected by DPS go to the General Fund or other state funds by Legislative mandate. The CHL section's budget is merely a small part of the DPS Administration Divison budget which is a part of the DPS budget as a whole. Any budget "surplus" or "shortages" in any budgetary unit operating funds are absorbed into the DPS budget as a whole.

The cost of a CHL is set by the legislature, not DPS.

My statement about the underfunding referred to the turnover of employees due to low salaries. The largest portion of the DPS budget is salary money. Salaries of state employees rank well below local government agencies, not to mention private business. As a result, turnover is a serious problem in many Texas state agencies and surely affects the CHL section as well. As an example, one different dept in Austin has a authorized staff of 8 employees, but they have had 4 vacancies for almost a year, unable to attract applicants due to low salary. Another office in Beaumont has 5 employees, but has been carrying 3 vacancies since before April of this year. The inability to keep trained employees and stay fully staffed hampers any operations efficiency.

[txinvestigator]

You chl fees go straight into the general fund.

The CHL division operates on a budget set by the legislature.

[Commander]

TxI; you're basically correct. The Legislature approves the overall DPS Budget based on budget requests submitted by the Director of DPS to the LBB (Legislative Budget Board). These requests identify projected budgetary funding needs for every DPS budgetary unit.

The CHL Section budget request to the legislature is set by the various powers that be within the DPS Directors Office and the Administratiion Division of which CHL is a part of.