The report, done by the Minnesota legislative auditor, says both the state Department of Public Safety and Office of Minnesota Information Technology Services must share the blame for the troubled system rollout in 2017.
The report says the one hundred million dollars and nine years devoted to developing MNLARS should have been sufficient to successfully complete the project.
The problems started early with a private vendor that was terminated for unsatisfactory work. The two agencies then decided to build MNLARS in-house, but the report says they failed to take sufficient steps to make sure the large and risky project would succeed.
Minnesota's Licensing and Registration System has been plagued by expensive and frustrating problems since it was implemented and is responsible for outages, shutdowns and delays.
Investigating the problems has been contentious. State legislative auditor Jim Nobles had to subpoena the Department of Public Safety, something he said he's never done in his 35-year career.
“I find the legislative audit to be troubling, frustrating, but not altogether surprising, " said State Senator Scott Newman (R-Hutchinson), chair of the Senate Transportation Finance and Policy Committee. "From the beginning, the state of Minnesota was not equipped to handle a project of this scale and, even when confronted with that reality, state officials kept the project moving toward release." He's calling for swift action to get the bohemoth system up and running as it should be.
Governor Walz wants to spend about 16 million to continue that process.
You can read the full report here.
This story is developing.