January 31 - February 1, 2024

AAMVA’s Board of Directors convened in-person January 31 – February 1 to discuss and act upon strategic initiatives that will shape the year ahead. Many of the topics covered and the approved Board actions are summarized below. These are not formal meeting minutes. For information on approved minutes from past meetings, contact Member Services.

Chair Spencer R. Moore shared with the Board a recap of his first four months as Chair, including time meeting with all four regions, the Standing Committees, and speaking at AASHTO Safety Summit. 

Similarly, Ian Grossman recapped his first four months as CEO, including an aggressive travel schedule to meet with members, stakeholders, public speaking engagements, and the December Congressional testimony on the future of digital identity. Ian shared the team’s progress to ensure a smooth internal transition and plans for next steps related to internal alignment and succession planning. This includes developing an updated model to support the phased retirement of Philippe Guiot, CIO, who has been with AAMVA since 1991. 

Financial Matters

AAMVA’s financial advisors, RBC/Etergino Group, reported that AAMVA’s Investment Portfolio increased in value over the past year and was more than the organization’s cash needs during the year. The association’s moderate-to-conservative long-term investment policy and risk posture provided them guidance to help mitigate risk and realize healthy returns relative to the market. 

From a financial management perspective, AAMVA achieved a clean audit for FY2023. This is the fifth consecutive year AAMVA reached this achievement. Links to AAMVA’s audited financial statements, single audit reports, and Tax Form 990 reports can be found at Guidestar.org or on AAMVA’s website. Year to date financial results reflects spending under budget while achieving most first-quarter goals.

Strategic Governance

To monitor AAMVA’s Strategic Framework, the Board reviewed progress made during the first year of the current five year plan and considered a proposal for a new and expanded governance structure. They approved a revised model that will focus policy and organizational governance across key committees:

• Finance, Investment, and Audit Committee
• Information Technology Advisory Committee
• Driver License Committee
• Identity Management Committee
• Vehicle Committee
• Law Enforcement Committee
• Business Operations Committee

More details on the transition from the current governance structure to this updated model will be determined in the coming months. In the meantime, the current committees provided the Board with updates and action items, including:

Information Technology 

Following their in-person meeting which focused on a review of the soon to be completed Azure migration of all AAMVA systems and the beginning of the deployment of the new SD-WAN networks to the jurisdiction, the Board approved the committee’s recommendation to sunset the UNI software and of the AMIE message format. Following the earlier decision of the Board to sunset the UNI mainframe by January 2025, the UNI Windows will sunset July 2026 and the AMIE format will sunset January 2028. More details will be sent to members and will be discussed in the next CIO Roundtable on March 6 at 1:00 pm ET. 

Among other impacts, the 2028 sunsetting of AMIE require the Social Security Administration (SSA) to convert the Social Security Online Verification System (SSOLV) and the Help America Vote Verification system (HAVV) to the REST format. SSA provided a cost estimate for the conversion of SSOLV and HAVV. AAMVA will cover the SSOLV costs with either its operating costs or its reserves. AAMVA staff will also be working with the Jurisdictions’ Voting Bureaus to secure the funding for the HAVV development costs prior to entering a contract with SSA for the system upgrade.

Driver Licensing

The Driver Committee reported the successful integration of the State-to-State and Driver License Compact Governance Committee, the growing number of states adopting the modernized CDL test, and work being done by the CDLIS Subcommittee to support the 2024 and 2025 rule deadlines. The Board approved publication of the Emergency Resiliency Readiness Best Practice which provides a guide for jurisdictions preparing for and hoping to mitigate the impact of emergencies through planning. 

The Board reviewed the status of the State-to-State Service. With 214 million pointers, the system continues to operate well above its Service level Objective (SLO) of 99.5% up time with a YTD of 99,79% uptime during core business hours. The response time is also well above its SLO of 99% or response time below 5 seconds with a YTD of 99.96% during core business hours. The system has now 39 Jurisdictions participating including 16 jurisdictions already on the Driver History Record release (DHR, 6.2). 

Vehicle

The Vehicle Committee shared key developments on NMVTIS and electronic titling projects. The Board approved publication of the 4th Edition of the Guidelines for Regulating Vehicles with Automated Driving Systems and a new Guidance Document to assist jurisdictions in determining what types of signatures may be acceptable for physical odometer disclosure statements.

Law Enforcement

The Law Enforcement Committee shared for the Board’s adoption a recommendation to rename AAMVA’s Lifetime Achievement in Highway Safety to Lifetime Achievement in Roadway Safety to recognize that efforts related to these awards are intended to be inclusive of all roads. 

The Board also agreed with the recommendation to delete the outdated Statutes to Substitute Alcohol Concentration for Blood Alcohol Content Policy and to propose a new Vulnerable Road User Policy to members at the 2024 Annual Membership Meeting.

Identity Management

Two jurisdictions (Maryland and Utah) have been approved by the Steering Committee for inclusion in the Digital Trust Service (DTS). At least two more jurisdictions have applications in process, including one undergoing compliance testing. The committee and staff are using early lessons learned to revise the application, onboarding documents, and guidance for issuing authorities utilizing multiple mDL providers.

U.S. Federal Government Partners

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA)

The new Acting Deputy Administrator Sue Lawless led the FMCSA providing updates on federal-state ELDT program collaboration and enforcement efforts, upcoming information technology compliance deadlines (EEE, DACH and NRMCE), and the success of the modernized CDL testing process. They also spoke about apprenticeship programs associated with younger drivers and plans for a safety evaluation of that group. 

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)

The Associate Administrator for Research and Program Development, Nanda Srinivasan joined AAMVA to discuss the latest in shared public safety interests.  This included an update on the new Model Minimum Uniform Crash Criteria (MMUCC 6th Edition) and its interaction with AAMVA’s Data Element Dictionary for Traffic Records Systems (D20). NHTSA cited its support and representation for AAMVA’s Standing Committee work on automated vehicles, International Driver Examiner Certification (IDEC) and Test Maintenance Subcommittee (TMS). 

Transportation Security Administration (TSA)

Simone Davis, Director of the REAL ID Enrollment Services and Vetting Programs provided an update on REAL ID program status, including national data showing approximately 56 percent of individuals are REAL ID enrolled. They are collecting additional data at TSA checkpoints to monitor the type of credential currently being used by travelers and they plan to share that data with the jurisdictions after conducting security review of the data sets. They noted that the agency has removed the remote application processing rulemaking from the unified regulatory agenda, citing the lack of current industry standards. 

United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)

Amy Wheelock, Chief of the Verification Division introduced Steve Yonkers as the new Chief of the SAVE Branch. They provided updates on SAVE volumes and response time. USCIS commended state implementation efforts associated with SAVE 37.1 and committed to making future releases smoother in terms of implementation schedule and support. USCIS spoke to past instances of SAVE system downtime and plans to continue to analyze operations to minimize any future disruptions.

Wrap-up and Feedback

AAMVA's Board of Directors is committed to governing the association in the interest of jurisdiction members and encourage members who have questions or topics they would like the AAMVA Board to consider, to contact AAMVA President and CEO, Ian Grossman.