Beginning in October, Sunflower County residents will notice a change in the car tag renewal notices they receive.
The Mississippi Department of Revenue will no longer print auto tag renewal notices for county tax offices as it has done for the past 40 years.
According to Sunflower County Tax Assessor/Collector Cynthia Chandler, the state office will end the process in anticipation of the start-up of a new online service, Mississippi Automated Registration Vehicle Information Network or M.A.R.V.I.N., set to start October 9.
M.A.R.V.I.N. is a state-of-the art, web-based system, that cost $18.8 million to implement and will take the place of the current system, according to Department of Revenue spokeswoman Katie Lawson, as reported in a Clarion-Ledger news article.
Chandler, like the tax assessor/collectors in Mississippi’s other 81 counties, will be switching to a third-party vendor to do the county’s printing and mailing. She notified the supervisors on Aug. 21 of her intent to use Divco Data a division of Diversified Companies, LLC of Chattanooga as her source.
Chandler said only Sunflower County and two other counties are still getting their printing done by the state, the other 79 counties have already changed over to third-party vendors to print and mail out renewal cards for them.
The October renewal cards will be the last ones printed by the Department of Revenue, after that they will provide any remaining office, that hasn’t employed an outside vendor, with a file they can use to print the renewal information on a regular letter-size sheet of paper for mailing out to those needing to purchase tags.
One of the features of the M.A.R.V.I.N. system to vehicle owners will be the ability to request electronic notices via email instead of having them mailed. Chandler said she could have elected to not hire a company but that would mean that her staff would have to print, sort, and fold the notices and stuff over a thousand plus envelopes a month, which she said would take them away from other important duties.
Chandler said performing the service in-house would also cause her department to have to spend more on office supplies and maybe increase personnel. When the state was mailing out the cards, Chandler said it cost her 26 cents per card, but all her office had to do was detach their copy and take them to the post office.
Divco Data’s rate is 33 cents per card, however they will do all of the work. Chandler said her clerks would be able to print owner information from the M.A.R.V.I.N. system in the event someone comes in and needs a hard copy. Her goal, she said, is to do whatever is in the best interest of the taxpayers.
