California DMV shuts all field offices to protect employees in coronavirus outbreak

California's Department of Motor Vehicles is shutting down all of its field offices for the rest of the month because of the coronavirus outbreak and expanding the number of transactions that customers can complete online, according to records obtained by The Sacramento Bee.

In a message to DMV employees Thursday afternoon, the department announced the offices will be closed so they can be thoroughly cleaned in order to “protect the health and safety of customers and employees during the coronavirus pandemic.”

Those locations are expected to reopen to employees on April 1, according to the memo. The department is canceling in-office appointments, and the memo does not say when they can be rescheduled.

Customer service centers and the department's Sacramento headquarters will still remain open during this time, and the DMV is trying to get more employees to work remotely.

The department by April 2 plans to offer more services at its website that previously required in-person visits, such as vehicle title transfers and complex vehicle registration renewals, according to the message.

The decision to closes offices comes amid concerns about employees testing positive for COVID-19, a high rate of workers not showing up and a rapidly shrinking number of customers coming into offices.

Almost 1 in 4 DMV call center employees did not go to work on Wednesday after one of their colleagues tested positive for COVID-19 in Riverside, according to the DMV.

Another 13 percent of field office employees also did not go to work on Wednesday. The Riverside call center had been cleaned on Tuesday and declared safe by the county health department.

In a different email to workers on Thursday afternoon, DMV Director Steve Gordon said the Fullerton field office had been shut down for cleaning “in response to a positive test and possible to exposure to COVID-19.”

Recent DMV data shows the department has nearly 10,000 employees, including 6,828 field office workers.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and President Donald Trump have already taken steps to ease some of the DMV's responsibilities during the outbreak.

The department had limited in-person customer visits to those who already had appointments scheduled, suspended driving tests and urged law enforcement agencies to exercise discretion when dealing with drivers whose license and registration records expire over the next two months.

These actions contributed to an 82 percent drop in customers visiting the DMV on a typical day compared to last month.

The DMV also learned on Thursday that the Trump administration planned to extend a deadline for people to obtain Real ID cards by one year, giving Californians more time to obtain the new licenses. They now will be required starting on Oct. 1, 2021, for Americans wishing to board airplanes or enter other federal facilities without having to bring their passports.