License plate shortage affects auto industry as PennDOT works to catch up after pandemic shutdowns

Car dealerships and notaries throughout Pennsylvania are experiencing a hiccup in the supply chain for license plates — often leaving management at those retailers scrambling to continue doing business during the coronavirus pandemic.

The problem, according to dealerships, notaries and state officials, is twofold: License plate stockpiles at car dealerships and notaries are low; and the four-person team in Harrisburg responsible for processing license plate orders for dealerships and notaries across the state fell behind, though is slowly catching up.

‘It’s been chaos’

When any person in Pennsylvania buys a new vehicle, the process for getting a license plate on that vehicle includes either working with a dealership or a service center. Those places typically have a stockpile of plates to make the process convenient and eliminate wait times for customers.

Robert Thomasson, general manager at Spitzer Toyota in Monroeville, said he orders 100 car and SUV plates and 100 truck plates at a time, typically every month. There are different classes of vehicle plates in Pennsylvania.

Thomasson placed such an order, along with an accompanying payment of $3,212, through the Pennsylvania Automotive Association (PAA) on June 15. PAA is a nonprofit organization based in Harrisburg that provides support to dealerships across the state. With PAA’s help, those orders are usually fulfilled within five days, Thomasson said.

On July 9, he was still waiting for the plates. On that day, the dealership’s stockpile of plates had depleted to seven.

“My business will come to a standstill if I can’t deliver cars,” he said.

The plates finally arrived July 15, exactly one month after placing the order.

“If a customer has to have his car this weekend and I don’t have a plate, I lose the business to a competitor,” he said, although he added that he assumes his competition is in the same boat.

It turns out they are.

Hillview Motors in Greensburg was down to around 30 license plate earlier this week, which is “not many,” said Heather Monroe, an office manager at Hillview. The dealership received a shipment of 100 plates Thursday, but the order had been placed a month ago.

“If we do run out, we’ll send (customers) to a tag service or notary,” she said.

Monroe said doing that, however, is an inconvenience to customers and an extra expense to the dealership, as it is charged a small fee for referring customers to those types of service centers.

But the service centers are running low on plates, too.

“It’s been chaos since opening back up,” said Nikki Kostelnik, manager of Messenger Services Inc. in McKeesport. The notary and license service center also has sites in Monroeville and Bethel Park.

The company waited on an order of 100 license plates for four weeks before finally getting them July 10. Kostelnik said she placed another order of 100 plates on June 25 to keep up with the demand. She has yet to receive them.

Kostelnik said the Messenger Services site in Monroeville has experienced increased business because of its proximity to an AAA license center — another site that has experienced plate shortages.

“They’re right across the street from us, so they’ve been sending them to us. It’s been a little nuts,” Kostelnik said.

Theresa Podguski, AAA East Central’s director of legislative affairs, said in an emailed statement that the organization is aware of the problem and is working on fixing it.

“We are aware that there was a delay in getting license plates over the past few months due to the covid-19 pandemic. However, we are working with our suppliers to resolve this temporary inventory shortage to ensure we meet our members’ needs,” she said.

‘No shortage’

Although it might seem like there is a shortage of license plates in Pennsylvania, PennDOT says that’s not really the case. Rather, the underlying issue has been a high demand and not enough staff to fulfill orders.

“There is no shortage of license plates,” said Diego Sandino, spokesman for PennDOT’s Driver and Vehicle Services. “The department has a supply of plates to meet the demand and (Pennsylvania Correctional Industries) continues to produce license plates.”

The majority of Pennsylvania license plates are manufactured by inmates at State Correctional Institution (SCI) Fayette in La Belle, Sandino said.

Rhonda House, SCI Fayette’s public information officer, said inmates are working on manufacturing plates from orders received in June. She said production has slowed, but “only a little bit” because of having fewer inmates and receiving fewer orders from PennDOT.

According to state Department of Corrections data for SCI Fayette, which was last updated July 15, the prison has four fewer inmates this week because of reprieve releases, a temporary program Gov. Tom Wolf ordered April 10.

The prison shut down its manufacturing process when the state’s entire prison system closed March 30 to April 6. At the time, Department of Corrections secretary John Wetzel said he placed the system in quarantine to “contain the virus to one facility and to keep it from spreading throughout the system.”

The action came after an inmate at SCI Phoenix in Montgomery County tested positive for the virus.

PennDOT spokesman Sandino said the staff of four that process license plate orders fell behind when PennDOT was shut down for more than a month because of the coronavirus pandemic.

PennDOT shut down operations on March 16. The agency reopened and began processing orders on April 21 for dealers licensed to process online registrations.

“In the short term, demand exceeded capacity to fill orders as timely as the department would like or businesses expected, leading to longer turnaround times,” Sandino said.

When counties began moving to Gov. Tom Wolf’s yellow phase on May 8 as part of the state’s reopening plan, Sandino said Driver and Vehicle Services added staff and allowed them to work overtime to process orders.

Sandino said the Bureau of Motor Vehicles’ temporary tag unit, located at PennDOT’s Harrisburg Riverfront Office Center, is the team responsible for processing license plate orders for the entire state. He said that although the unit is typically staffed by four people, seven additional PennDOT workers have recently been redirected to help process outstanding orders. More staff members are on the way.

According to Craig Yetter, another PennDOT spokesman, in June 2019 the sales of license plates in the state totaled 177,961. In June 2020, sales reached 280,171, a 57% increase.

“With the addition of staffing and the utilization of overtime, the department is now processing and shipping more orders than received on a daily basis,” Sandino said. He added the department expects turnaround times to “go back to normal no later than the end of July.”