LAND O’ LAKES, Fla. — Tampa Bay tax collectors are calling out the Florida Dept. of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.

They say their staff and customers have been dealing with daily outages of the system they use to issue driver’s licenses, car and boat registrations, and more, with little explanation from the state.

“Extremely frustrated,” said Pasco County Tax Collector Mike Fasano. “It’s not the first time. We’ve gotten to a point after talking to some of our other tax collectors around the state, how frustrated they are, it was time for at least myself to speak out.”

Fasano said the state introduced a new system called Orion back in January and issues started shortly after, escalating in the past two or three weeks. According to Fasano, his office is dealing with outages or a very slow-moving system every day, and he said the state needs to speak up, particularly FLHSMV Executive Director Dave Kerner.

. @fasanomike is calling on @FLHSMV to explain to tax collector’s offices and customers statewide what’s causing daily system outages that’s preventing staff from issuing driver’s licenses and more for sometimes hours at a time. He says it’s been going on for several weeks. @BN9 pic.twitter.com/2OCQVNBiJi

— Sarah Blazonis (@SarahBlazonis) May 27, 2026

“He’s silent. He’s mum on this, and I’m almost to the point where you wonder — does he even realize what’s going on in the tax collector offices throughout the state?” said Fasano.

Fasano took aim at the department and Kerner in a statement Wednesday, saying, “Kerner must be aloof or just not care about the tens of thousands of people, each day, who visit their local tax collector offices and are told they must try again another time because the state system is down. Again.”

“We have customers that come in, can’t get service,” Fasano said. “We have customers that will come that will sit there for sometimes 10, 20, 30, 40 minutes, sometimes longer than that, than they should be sitting, waiting for the system to come back on.”

Fasano said FLHSMV hasn’t given a lot of information about what’s going on. He provided Spectrum Bay News 9 with emails sent to his office by the department that point to “higher than usual response times causing a degradation of services in ORION.”

The issue is impacting offices statewide. Polk County Tax Collector Joe G. Tedder called the system’s lack of reliability “crippling”. He said wait times at his offices jumped from 20 minutes or less to three hours, in some cases.

Tedder said in a statement, “This is unacceptable. My Office is required to use this State computer system to do the basics like, you know, work.”

In Hillsborough County, Tax Collector Nancy Millan said in a statement, “These systems and their reliability are outside the control of local offices, yet our employees are the ones standing face-to-face with frustrated customers while having little information to provide beyond notices that the state is troubleshooting the issue and updates will come when available.”

FLHSMV posted to X that it’s aware of ongoing performance issues. It said, “Our teams are actively monitoring the situation, implementing mitigation efforts, and working toward a full resolution. We know how important reliable service is for our communities, and we appreciate your patience as we address these issues.”

FLHSMV is aware of ongoing performance issues affecting our driver license and motor vehicle systems, which may impact service times in tax collector offices statewide. We will continue to share updates as they become available. pic.twitter.com/3ifDAWfRD5

— FLHSMV (@FLHSMV) May 27, 2026

Pinellas Tax Collector Adam Ross said via statement, “While we understand that FLHSMV is working diligently to resolve these issues so we can return to our usual level of service, we look forward to a permanent solution, so our thousands of weekly customers are not further inconvenienced.”

“They don’t tell us what the problem is because I don’t think they know what the problem is, but they need to address it with the people, with the customers, with the state of Florida,” said Fasano. 

Fasano went on to say, “The frustration is beyond me. It’s down to our customers. That’s who we have to take care of. They’re not only our customers, they’re our constituents. They’re taxpayers, and they need to be served better than the way that the state is serving them now.”

Tedder recommended citizens reach out to FLHSMV directly with the concerns by calling (850) 617-2000 and by submitting an email form on the department’s website.