Kevin Shweto, executive director of the South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles, told the House Education and Public Works Committee that the DMV needs a modernized IT and issuance system — a project he estimated would cost about $100 million — and urged lawmakers to support modernization funding to avoid service disruptions and identity‑verification risks.

Shweto said South Carolina has grown from about 4 million to 5.3 million residents while the DMV’s staffing and budget have not kept pace. He described a roughly 33 percent annual turnover among his 1,500 employees (about 500 separations per year) and said many frontline DMV workers perform dozens of legally mandated transaction types that require specialized training, including title and registration transactions, identity verification and fraud prevention.

The director repeatedly warned about the federal Real ID timeline: he said only about 60 percent of state residents currently have a Real ID and warned that after the federal enforcement date travelers without Real ID or a passport will face restricted air travel and cannot access some federal facilities. He urged residents to obtain required documents (birth certificate, two forms of ID and Social Security number) and said the DMV will see longer lines as residents seek Real IDs.

Shweto described operational constraints: the DMV relies on a legacy system called Phoenix built with COBOL; when that system fails, multiple services and interagency checks go offline. He said prior modernization efforts in other states had failed and cautioned that vendor selection and implementation timing matter; he urged the legislature to fund a robust modernization effort and avoid repeated failed implementations.

On related public‑safety topics, Shweto raised DUI enforcement and recidivism concerns, saying the state’s current handling of DUI offenders creates a “cottage industry” that fails to deter repeat offenders. He also discussed partnerships with law enforcement and the need to fund school resource officers and other school safety measures, and said the agency tries to train uniformly across 66 DMV offices.

Shweto invited lawmakers to contact him directly with constituent DMV issues and said the DMV will move to centralized card issuance and pursue mobile/biometric options as security permits; he argued those changes would reduce fraud and long‑term costs. No formal committee action was taken during the presentation; members expressed support for modernization and asked follow‑up questions about Real ID, data privacy and resource officers in schools.

Less critical detail: Shweto emphasized the practical challenges of identity verification for some residents (document chains for name changes) and noted that some specialized license types and local practices will require careful policy design if the DMV’s services are expanded or centralized.