KY Senate hits the gas on sending driver’s licensing services to local offices
Rather than visiting one of Kentucky’s regional transportation cabinet offices, drivers across the commonwealth could renew their licenses closer to home after a proposal to allow some localities the ability to do so moved quickly during the General Assembly’s second week.
Senate Bill 7 gives county offices without a regional licensing office the option to run driver’s license renewal and duplication services, which the sponsor hopes will reduce Kentuckians’ wait times.
The bill passed the Senate on a 34-1 vote Friday, Jan. 16. It’s the first bill from the Senate to be sent to the House of Representatives for consideration.
Sen. Lindsey Tichenor, R-Smithfield, was the lone no vote, saying on the floor she’d like to see a stronger piece of legislation.
The proposal would give clerks, sheriff’s offices, county judge executives and other leaders in counties the ability to run the license renewal services. Currently, those services are only available at the transportation cabinet’s 34 regional offices scattered across the state.
In a commonwealth with 120 counties and a sizable share of residents living in rural areas, the regional system has meant some Kentuckians have dealt with long drives and frustrating wait times to renew their licenses.
Those frustrations were exacerbated last year, when the state said 15-year-olds could obtain driver’s permits, added a vision screening requirement and Kentuckians complied with the REAL ID deadline, further increasing demand for appointments at regional offices.
Sen. Aaron Reed, R-Shelbyville, is the primary sponsor, and the bill has 29-cosponsors in a 38-member body, including the senate president, majority floor leader and the three Republican state senators who represent parts of Fayette County.
Sen. Jimmy Higdon, R-Lebanon, who chairs the Senate Standing Committee on Transportation and is a co-sponsor, stood alongside Reed as he discussed the bill in a press conference Tuesday, Jan. 13, the same day he filed the bill. The bill, as it was introduced, passed unanimously out of committee Wednesday, Jan. 14, without much discussion.
The state transitioned driver’s license services from county clerks to regional offices in 2021 with the hope they would be fully transitioned by June 2022. A bill passed by the legislature in 2020 required the shift to create a more centralized system and comply with federal REAL ID requirements.
In the Tuesday press conference, Reed cited public outcry about limited appointment availability and longer-than-average wait times as reasons he filed the bill to bring renewal services back to localities.
Kentucky’s Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear said during his weekly press conference Thursday he is still reviewing the bill but worries it would change a system he’s working to improve and instead ask counties to start from scratch.
The governor said he understands the difficulty brought on by an influx of Kentuckians visiting regional offices and the system, but the learning curve to administer services is steep.
Beshear said after he reviews the proposal, he may have a counter to send to Reed.
“My concern about changing the system is everybody else is going to have to start from scratch now and go through possibly six years of the learning curve,” he said. “Now, one way that could help is that some of the vision screening could be done locally because that’s what’s driving people in now. ... So, happy to work with legislators on it, but I want to make sure that we don’t just scrap a system that we worked six years to build.”
From April to December 2025, Beshear said the average walk-in wait times fell from 49 minutes to 11 minutes and average appointment wait times fell from 25 minutes to 11 minutes. He also said more than 1.3 million state credentials were issued in 2025, including 21,000 permits to 15-year-olds.
Ahead of the floor vote Friday, Reed told the Herald-Leader he knows “it’s not a perfect bill,” indicating it could change before it potentially gets sent to the governor’s desk.
“What we’re trying to do is to get the ball rolling and have a strategic movement toward the long game of offering customer service that Kentuckians want and deserve in their home counties,” Reed said Thursday, indicating he’s open to negotiating with his peers.
“I wish if I were king, it’d be a perfect bill,” Reed said. “But I’m not king. I’m a member of a team here, and we’re legislating together, and for the people, everyone gets a say.”
Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, made similar comments to reporters, calling the bill a “starting point” and said he expects thorough discussion on what the end product should be.
“SB 7 is trying to figure out how ... we comply with federal law and REAL ID, but also make it as convenient and efficient for those people who either want new licenses or renewal of licenses without getting the real ID,” Stivers said.
The bill now heads to the House for the next steps in the legislative process. But the House has similar proposals of its own.
House Bill 162, sponsored by Rep. Savannah Maddox, R-Dry Ridge, would give circuit court clerk’s the ability to issue and renew REAL IDs. The bill was assigned Jan. 14 to the House Standing Committee on Transportation which meets Tuesdays at 10 a.m.
Rep. Rebecca Raymer, R-Morgantown, also filed a bill that would allow local government offices to issue driver’s licenses.
Under Raymer’s proposal, House Bill 332, local officials could partner with the transportation cabinet that would be required to guarantee at least one local entity in a county can offer licensing services. The bill has also been assigned to the Transportation Committee.
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