A man’s voice rings out in the hallway outside the Shawnee County Treasurer’s Office.

"This is ridiculous!" he shouts as he waits in the courthouse, 200 S.E. 7th, to renew his vehicle tags.

Several others chime in, yelling over one another to air their grievances.

Marsha Ralston, motor vehicle office manager, steps out of the office, thinking a fight has broken out. Once she realizes it is another batch of disgruntled customers, she tries to reason with them.

"You’re yelling at the wrong people," she says. "I understand your frustration, but there’s nothing we can do to fix it. We are doing the best we can with the situation the state has given us."

"We understand," a man retorts, "but that’s not solving our problem."

After Ralston leaves, a man takes a pen and crosses out the words "Here to Serve You Better" on a poster in the hall.

Another member of the treasurer’s staff cries alone in her office.

So goes another day at the Shawnee County Treasurer’s Office.

It has been 51 days since the Kansas Department of Revenue launched its new, $40 million motor vehicle system. Nearly every day since, the staff at the Shawnee County Treasurer’s Office has had to stop taking numbers at noon. The office has remained three weeks behind on its mail-in renewals. Staff members have been cussed and screamed at daily.

Each day, taxpayers wait for four hours or more to renew their tags. They miss work, feed parking meters and move their cars every two hours to avoid tickets. Sometimes they leave, after hours of waiting, without new tags but with a renewed fear of missing their deadline.

The state insists all of the other counties aren’t having these problems. It also says it hasn’t heard of any significant outages since May and that other counties not only are up to speed, but are processing more tags and renewals than ever before.

Staff members in the Shawnee County Treasurer’s Office, however, claim the system is the cause for the long waits and early closing times — and they don’t see any end in sight.

"We are just as frustrated as they are," Ralston said of the taxpayers.

THE SYSTEM

As of June 15, counties statewide had processed 36.5 percent more renewals than by this time last year, said Jeannine Koranda, public information officer with the Kansas Department of Revenue. The counties have processed 24 percent more titles and registrations in that time as well, she said.

"You couldn’t be doing that with big lag," Koranda said.

But the staff at the Shawnee County office claim the system freezes at least once a day, shutting everyone out of the system until they can boot it up again.

There are other glitches, too, Ralston said. Like if a title didn’t convert to the new system, the clerks have to enter a new one, as if the person had just purchased the vehicle.

Because of the issues, the treasurer’s office has stopped taking new customers early nearly every day since the new system went live May 9, Treasurer Larry Wilson said.

The past two weeks, he said, the office has stopped taking new numbers at noon.

"There’s not much we can do," Wilson said. "The only thing we can do to save the customers is not to have hundreds of people waiting."

Even though new customers stop at noon, he said, the staff still works until 5 or 6 p.m. Ralston said some come in on Saturdays to try to catch up.

Shawnee County has received more assistance from the state than any other county besides Johnson County, Koranda said. Johnson and Sedgwick counties — two of the state’s larger areas — report being back to normal, she said.

"Shawnee County has been offered same training and more assistance than most other counties have gotten," Koranda said.

FRUSTRATION

Meanwhile, taxpayers are becoming increasingly anxious about their pending renewal deadlines.

Martin High had pulled two tickets Wednesday to renew his tags — one at the treasurer’s annex and one at the courthouse, whichever ended up moving faster.

Others were waiting in line for their second and third days. A pair of women had taken off work. Some had to be back at work by 1 p.m.

Russ Ennis, who pulled No. 571 at 8:05 a.m. Wednesday, had been waiting almost three hours when the office called No. 520. He suggested it would be easier to pay a ticket than miss work and pay meters.

Most of the renewal deadlines that have passed were extended to the end of June, to accommodate the new system. But many people, both in the treasurer’s office and taxpayers, worry that won’t be long enough.

Those involved in Wednesday’s exchange insisted they weren’t mad at Ralston or the county treasurer’s office.

They were mad at the state for not taking responsibility.

"This is why people don’t like their government," High said. "The only thing the government will give you is a hassle."

Ennis quipped right back.

"I thought the only thing the government gave you was the finger," he said.