AUSTIN — Texans calling state agencies in recent years waited on hold for a lifetime — literally.

Callers were on hold for a total of one million hours — some 114 years — trying to get in touch with eight state agencies over a two-year period ending in August 2017, according to a new state audit.

The worst waits were at the driver license division, which has already come under fire from lawmakers for long lines at offices across the state. Callers waited on hold an average of 15-and-a-half minutes. One in five hung up before ever talking with a customer service representative, the report said.

“Long call wait times present an inconvenience to callers, demonstrate inefficient use of state resources and delay the response time to process business requests or to provide vital health and safety services,” warned the report by the Legislative Budget Board staff.

The report names several possible fixes, from hiring more staff and using chat bots to creating a pilot program that would have inmates help answer calls. In New York, inmates at two correctional facilities answer roughly a million calls a year for the department of motor vehicles, the report said. The inmates are paid up to $1.14 per hour in a program that saves taxpayers $3.5 million a year, according to New York officials.

It remains to be seen how much traction the proposals will gain among state lawmakers, who are busy crafting the next two-year budget.

Callers trying to report potential abuse or neglect of children and the elderly waited an average of nine minutes before speaking to someone at the Department of Family and Protective Services, the report found.

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Average wait times for benefits counseling from the Teacher Retirement System jumped from 10 to 30 minutes in 2018, the year after retirees’ health insurance costs shot up.

Some agencies don’t track call hold times, the report found. It’s unclear how long people waited on hold with the State Parks Reservation Hotline, but nearly a third of callers in 2016 hung up before reaching someone, the report said. When LBB staff called the hotline at random, the estimated waits ranged from 23 minutes to three hours.

As a plus, the report said the parks hotline offers a call back option for those who don’t want to stay on hold — a service that’s not offered by some of the other agencies.

State lawmakers are already crafting plans to tackle long waits at the driver license division, which is overseen by the Department of Public Safety. Though the state has poured money into improving customer service, long wait times still plague the division. Lawmakers this session are weighing whether to shift driver license services to the Department of Motor Vehicles and add staff to improve service.

One of the problems is technical, the report said. The driver license contact center can only accept 150 calls at a time, which means only about 20 percent of calls are being answered. DPS did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Some minor changes could make a big difference, the report found. The state parks division could shift more of its reservation service online, for example, which would reduce the number of calls. The Department of Family and Protective Services could tell callers from the start that they can report abuse online, instead of alerting them after three minutes on hold.

State Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, said wait times should be reduced, but noted that DFPS calls are different than those received by other agencies. DFPS workers can talk to a caller for upwards of 30 minutes taking down all the details needed for an investigator to look into alleged abuse, which can add to hold time.

The agency said it has already started streamlining the process of taking down information and wait times have dropped as a result. In the first six months of the current fiscal year, wait times averaged less than 10 minutes, down from nearly 12 minutes the year before, said spokesman Patrick Crimmins.

In addition, state lawmakers are considering salary bumps for intake workers who screen incoming calls to help reduce turnover. “Tenured staff are more efficient at handling contacts,” Crimmins said in a statement.

The Teacher Retirement System said it hired more staff to take calls and has lowered wait times to seven minutes. The jump last year stemmed from a switch in processing systems — the system was down for three weeks during the switch, leading to higher call volumes as well as increased hold times as staff learned to use the new equipment, said spokeswoman Carolyn Perez in a statement. “We will continue to hire and train telephone counselors to provide timely service,” she said.

amorris@express-news.net