COLUMBUS, Ohio — While a number of businesses in Ohio will begin reopening in the coming weeks, Bureau of Motor Vehicles locations are still closed around the state with no set day to return to work. For some Ohioans, like WCPO viewer Autumn McGee, this means having a tough time finding work.
McGee reached out to WCPO about the reopening of BMV locations because she is unable to renew her driver’s license -- and thus unable to be hired at a call center with an expired license.
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I asked Gov. Mike DeWine about the situation on Friday. DeWine shifted to Lt. Gov. Jon Husted for a response, and Husted told Ohioans he’s already working to find a way for the BMV to operate remotely.
“We actually had a conversation about that just before I left to come here this morning,” said Husted. “We are trying to identify what services we can push the registrars to deliver remotely, because as you may know, we were in the process of doing that with a lot of our online services prior to heading into this pandemic ... So we are going to drive the process to deliver more services online, and then, like we were doing with hairdressers and other things, this is one of our internal conversations we’re having about getting that done. I will have more news for you on that after I get some of those things to the Governor and we go through them on Monday.”
With Ohio’s stay-at-home order now expired, the state’s new “Stay Safe Ohio” order is set to last through May 29. The new order will allow certain businesses to reopen this month, but does not mention a plan for reopening BMV locations.
