Shelby County Clerk's Office says license plates haven't been mailed in two weeks

The Shelby County Clerk's Office said a shortage of cash for postage and high demand has delayed the mailing of license plates for the last two weeks.

License plates have not been mailed out since May 19, because the money for postage could not keep up with the influx of Shelby County drivers who are to receive newly designed license plates issued by the state in 2022, Chief Administrative Officer Bill Cash said Wednesday.

Shelby County Commissioners on Monday are expected to approve $540,000 to pay for postage to mail license plates, funding that comes from the $2 and $5 fees for decals and license plates collected by the clerk’s office. Once that funding is approved and transferred, mailing of plates will begin again immediately, Cash said.

They have continued to mail out the smaller decals.

On Wednesday, representatives of the clerk’s office showed commissioners photos of stacks of license plates waiting to be taken from the clerk's office to the county mailroom. Other photos showed employees stuffing plates into mailers by hand, an additional challenge, they said.

Cash said the increase in mailing out license plates has gone up “almost tenfold.”

“It just got out of our hands. The money was going out faster than getting in,” he said. “We’ve had all hands on deck.”

The office is looking at bringing new equipment in to stuff envelopes, Cash said, and may eventually ask for more funding to hire additional staff to do mailing services.

Commissioners expressed concern about the backlog of plates shown in the photos.

“For the citizens, I would think this is an emergency. Why are we waiting two weeks?” asked Commissioner Mark Billingsley. “People are driving around with expired plates right now because in this box of plates are their tags that should have been mailed out.”

Currently, staff at the County Clerk’s Office pack the envelopes with license plates and other outgoing mail, then send bins of the mail over to the county’s Public Works Support Services Department, which applies postage and takes mail to the post office within 24 hours for county entities.

That will cease July 1, with the Clerk’s Office taking on its own mail operations, according to a letter from Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris and County Commission Chairman Willie Brooks Jr., sent May 26 to County Clerk Wanda Halbert.

County staff is also working to identify funding to purchase a mail postage machine for the Clerk’s Office, according to emails provided to The Commercial Appeal.

Halbert objected to Harris and Brooks’ letter in a response sent Tuesday, saying in an email, “Based on the host of complaints received, lack of resources and a letter last week from the Mayor acknowledging the stopping of mail to customers by July 1st (which should have never been the duty of said office …), we have had to contact the Commissioners of the Department of Revenue and Homeland security and report a potential shutdown of our operations until there is a remedy!!!”

Katherine Burgess covers county government and religion. She can be reached at katherine.burgess@commercialappeal.com, 901-529-2799 or followed on Twitter @kathsburgess.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Clerk's Office says license plates haven't been mailed in two weeks