Republican state Senator Mary Kiffmeyer from Big Lake says the status quo cannot continue and hopes the new head of the state’s I-T Department will “welcome the Senate reform proposals as a part of the conversation going forward. ” Incoming Commissioner Tarek Tomes says 23-hundred state I-T workers are as devastated as anyone about issues with the vehicle registration and drivers license system, MN-LARS. “We want to make sure that they [employees] don’t retreat,” he says. “We want to make sure that they’re not afraid to continue to put forth bold solutions.”
Tomes says it’s premature to comment whether the state should abandon MN-LARS and use a commercially-available product tailored to Minnesota’s needs. Governor Tim Walz he’s waiting for recommendations from a special task force in early May and is “agnostic on where the solutions come from.” “Once we get in a track, we cannot get out of that thing, and that’s what happened with MN-LARS that it continued to go on. We’re trying to change the culture and say, no, take a different tack,” he says.