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With its budget slashed, Registry plans to close 11 offices

E-mail|Link|Comments () July 3, 2009 03:11 PM

By Michael Levenson, Globe Staff

Customers should expect longer wait times as the state Registry of Motor Vehicles closes 11 branch offices to cope with a $13 million hit in this year's state budget, Registry officials said today.

Registrar Rachel Kaprielian said that the RMV will try to soften the impact of the closures by opening four "mitigation branches" which are mostly smaller locations inside state-owned property, where they won't have to pay rent. Two such branches will open on the Massachusetts Turnpike, one at the Natick service plaza and one at the Charlton service plaza.

Kaprielian acknowledged that "things are going to get a little crunched" but said that customer service remains the agency's "North Star."

The Registry's busiest branch, in Chinatown, which draws 289,000 customers a year, will close, but not before the agency opens another Boston location, Kaprielian said. The new location has not yet been determined.

The Registry will also ramp up efforts to get people to use its website.

Layoffs are anticipated. But agency officials said the realignment plan was crafted with the goal of minimizing staff reductions, because that would only increase wait times further.

The branches will close, in the following order, between July and September: Lowell, North Attleborough, Cambridge (Cambridgeside Galleria), New Bedford, Springfield (Eastfield Mall),
Southbridge, Framingham, Falmouth, Eastham, and Beverly. The Chinatown branch will close in December.

In addition to opening at the Natick and Charlton plazas, mitigation branches will open at the Cape Cod Canal Visitors center at the Sagamore Bridge and on Route 1 in Peabody.

On The Beat

Reporter John R. Ellement is in Somerville District Court, where two former youth soccer coaches are accused of raping one of their 13-year-old players.