Online Registration renewal an option as county clerk’s office adjusts to new system

STAFF REPORT
Glasgow News 1

Barren County residents headed to the County Clerk’s Office to renew their motor vehicle might be greeted with long lines and slow renewal times due to the recent transition from the roughly 40-year-old registration system, AVIS, to the new Kentucky Automated Vehicle Information System, or KAVIS, system. Thankfully, some Barren County residents can forego a visit to the clerk’s office and can instead opt to renew their vehicles online.

Even if an individual has tried online renewal previously, a new update pushed through to the online vehicle registration late afternoon on Jan. 29 aimed to fix some issues may make it a possibility once again, according to the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet’s social media post.

“If you receive the “Your registration cannot be renewed online” message, you will need to contact your local County Clerk’s office to determine why you are not eligible to renew online,” the post states.

According to the cabinet there are four main reasons a person would not be able to renew online. The vehicle cannot be leased, have expired registrations, have overdue taxes and “The vehicle(s) must be insured for at least 45 days with the same insurance company for database verification. The insurance cannot expire the same month the registration is due.”

Signs taped on the front doors of the Barren County Government Building state the clerk’s office is still unable to process renewals for trailer and historic vehicles.

Helena Chase Birdwell, the county clerk, told the Barren County Fiscal Court magistrates at their Jan. 22 meeting that the “growing pains” of adjusting to the new system was “very frustrating” especially since KAVIS was a state-wide system and thus could not be solved at the county level.

“The system is still very glitchy,” Birdwell said. “There’s still lots of bugs. It’s still running very slow. No matter how hard [you work], or how much you want it, or how kind you are it just won’t work, so we’re just going to keep trucking along.”

The new system, which effected all 120 Kentucky county clerk’s offices and involved transferring 350 million records, went into effect locally on Jan. 9.