TexasCHLforum.com

Well the wait is over. Plastic arrived in the mail today.

ForTehNguyen wrote:processing application for me, this is getting ridiculous 5 months now

Yes that is beyond unacceptable. What I did was call the DPS's main number and asked to speak with a supervisor over the CHL dept. They then relayed my message to the rep handling my app, who also never returned my three voicemail's, and I was contacted within a 20min period. She lit the fire under Harris County's butt and I had my license within 5 days.

Go lite some fires!

I called the DPS today and they said they are awaiting background information to complete it........since August 18th. I live in Harris County btw. This call seems to confirm what I believed that the backup is with Harris County (from Ike as they claim) and not with the DPS. As I've seen August applications get their plastic which was obviously a non Harris county. Not sure what to do from here, besides just waiting

I received a call from Heather yesterday, she said they were waiting on one additional item from the background checks and said she would try to get it expedited. I was in the middle of a meeting and couldn't ask any additional questions. She said she couldn't give me a hard date and mentioned the hurricane and the amount of applications being processed was the holdup. She said would be giving me a call when everything was completed and the license was issued.

I was beginning to think I was going to set a new processing record, still may, but who knows. Hopefully not much longer.
Jim

ForTehNguyen wrote:I called the DPS today and they said they are awaiting background information to complete it........since August 18th. I live in Harris County btw. This call seems to confirm what I believed that the backup is with Harris County (from Ike as they claim) and not with the DPS. As I've seen August applications get their plastic which was obviously a non Harris county. Not sure what to do from here, besides just waiting

I haven't been waiting as long as you, but I've been waiting long enough to be sympathetic to your frustration. I made a post yesterday on the September thread regarding the Harris County delay. I had an interesting discussion with a Leut. from the Texas Highway Patrol (DPS) yesterday. He called me after I sent a letter to my District Rep. The Leut told me through course of conversation, that there is only ONE DPS Trooper that processes the Harris County BC's for CHL applications, and immediately following Ike, she was reassigned to hurricane duty for 5-6 weeks. That means that all the CHL BC's were piling-up for that period. She attended a funeral yesterday as an honor guard for a fallen LEO, and so she wasn't available for me to talk to her. I asked about any additional personnel that might be allocated to help her knock-out the backlog, and the Leut. told me "not at this time". The Leut. was going to be talking with the Trooper that processes the BC's and her Major today or tomorrow and promised to call me back no later than Friday with a status update. We'll see. but everthing is at least 5-6 weeks behind in Harris County. I'm hoping to talk to the Trooper personally regarding this matter, but I certainly have informed my Rep about the situation so she can influence some temporary reinforcements. It would probably be a good idea for all Harris County applicants to inform their Rep's about this so they can all push together.

pdubyoo wrote: It would probably be a good idea for all Harris County applicants to inform their Rep's about this so they can all push together.

Done it twice and I posted this before, but I'll do it again since it's saved in a simple .txt file.

[begin letter]

Subject: CHL

Hi,

I'm sure you've been getting a lot of inquiries lately about how long it's taking Austin (DPS) to get the subject background checks done and issuing licenses as per their rule of 60 days (which is not happening). I subscribe to an internet message forum and most members are not very satisfied with the DPS's performance regarding this matter. They (DPS) have sent some, if not most Gulf Coast County applicants a Hurricane IKE delay letter. They don't need to have any excuses; they couldn't get these licenses (or letters denying licenses) out on time pre-IKE. Can you contact them and see what's going on? I've contacted Gov. Perry's office as well and have received a somewhat 'canned' response.

By the way, as if it's not obvious, I'm awaiting my license too.

[end letter]

-Cain

CainA wrote:

pdubyoo wrote: It would probably be a good idea for all Harris County applicants to inform their Rep's about this so they can all push together.

Done it twice and I posted this before, but I'll do it again since it's saved in a simple .txt file.

CainA, what I meant specifically was to mention the fact that...

Harris County has only ONE DPS Trooper processing the BC's for CHL, and that there is a known 5-6 week backlog from Ike. Additional personnel needs to be allocated, even if temporarily, to eliminate the backlog.

This is a fact that the Reps can take to the director of DPS to have it addressed. At the same time, they need to influence the DPS Major in Harris County. Adding this fact to your statement gives the Rep irrefutable ammunition to work with.

-pdubyoo

Gotcha! Thanks.

-Cain

I'm past 5 months and looking to hit six. Everything was mailed off and received June 21. I'm a Harris County applicant.

Anyway, I am doubly screwed as opposed to some of you guys here. My state representative was voted out of office. He's just a lame duck now waiting for the next guy to be sworn in. (Corbin Van Arsdale) I've called his office and he's understandably not really doing much. His staff is nice though. For the life of me, I can't find out who the new guy is either.

So my only recourse is to sit here and hope you guys can get the ball rolling for everybody. I hate not being able to help out, but it is what it is I guess.

Thanks for the info pdubyoo. It explains a lot. It's also ironic that talking to that one trooper is just going to slow the work down even more. I wonder how many BC's can be done in a day.

wackjum wrote:Thanks for the info pdubyoo. It explains a lot. It's also ironic that talking to that one trooper is just going to slow the work down even more. I wonder how many BC's can be done in a day.

wackjum, I'm still a bit foggy on this, but I have read several posts over the last few months making reference to two BC's...one run against a state database, and the other run against a federal database. I confirmed this with a Houston PD officer that lives across the street from me, but he wasn't sure exactly how long the BC search takes, but definately less than 10 minutes for both if the records are clean. Some of the posts on this forum make reference to a 1-2 minute database search for each database. Based on that, I imagine the Trooper could get 12-15 done per hour, allowing for documents to print, etc. Doesn't sound real efficient, does it? They've got to get some additional manpower in there to knock-down the backlog. I'll be calling my Leut. contact tomorrow afternoon if he hasn't called me first. I want to strike while the iron is hot...

-pdubyoo

pdubyoo wrote:

wackjum wrote:Thanks for the info pdubyoo. It explains a lot. It's also ironic that talking to that one trooper is just going to slow the work down even more. I wonder how many BC's can be done in a day.

wackjum, I'm still a bit foggy on this, but I have read several posts over the last few months making reference to two BC's...one run against a state database, and the other run against a federal database. I confirmed this with a Houston PD officer that lives across the street from me, but he wasn't sure exactly how long the BC search takes, but definately less than 10 minutes for both if the records are clean. Some of the posts on this forum make reference to a 1-2 minute database search for each database. Based on that, I imagine the Trooper could get 12-15 done per hour, allowing for documents to print, etc. Doesn't sound real efficient, does it? They've got to get some additional manpower in there to knock-down the backlog. I'll be calling my Leut. contact tomorrow afternoon if he hasn't called me first. I want to strike while the iron is hot...

-pdubyoo

that's weird, i called last Wednesday to see how the process took...the lady i spoke to on the phone said the BC check took 1 business week.

Maybe one week is counting the time it takes to mail the request to the county and have the county mail it back.

wackjum wrote:Maybe one week is counting the time it takes to mail the request to the county and have the county mail it back.

real question would be why would they need to even do that if the DPS officer is handling the BC?

Well it's only been over 6 months DPS received my paper work on June 11th, In the end I had to contact my state rep, he contacted the DPS and sent me an e-mail
saying I will be hearing from the DPS. That day they contacted me and I was told that I will have my permit in a week, sure and behold I got a call today and was told that I will have my permit before 10:00am tomorrow. If it was not for Mr Taylor I'm sure I would still be waiting.....

Merry Christmas
See Ya I'm out of here

VTX wrote:Well it's only been over 6 months DPS received my paper work on June 11th, In the end I had to contact my state rep, he contacted the DPS and sent me an e-mail
saying I will be hearing from the DPS. That day they contacted me and I was told that I will have my permit in a week, sure and behold I got a call today and was told that I will have my permit before 10:00am tomorrow. If it was not for Mr Taylor I'm sure I would still be waiting.....

Merry Christmas
See Ya I'm out of here

I too, have contacted Rep. Taylor's office. The response I got was that they are pushing my application through (I recieved a call from DPS at about the same time the e-mail was sent) and that his office is working to get more help for the Harris County trooper assigned to CHL background checks.