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With its budget slashed, Registry plans to close 11 offices

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  • With its budget slashed, Registry plans to close 11 offices

    Boston Globe

    With its budget slashed, Registry plans to close 11 offices

    July 3, 2009 03:11 PM By Michael Levenson, Globe Staff

    Customers should expect longer wait times as the state Registry of
    Motor Vehicles closes 11 branch offices to cope with a $13 million hit
    in this year's state budget, Registry officials said today.
    Registrar Rachel Kaprielian said that the RMV will try to soften the
    impact of the closures by opening four "mitigation branches" which are
    mostly smaller locations inside state-owned property, where they won't
    have to pay rent. Two such branches will open on the Massachusetts
    Turnpike, one at the Natick service plaza and one at the Charlton
    service plaza.
    Kaprielian acknowledged that "things are going to get a little
    crunched" but said that customer service remains the agency's "North
    Star."
    The Registry's busiest branch, in Chinatown, which draws 289,000
    customers a year, will close, but not before the agency opens another
    Boston location, Kaprielian said. The new location has not yet been
    determined.
    The Registry will also ramp up efforts to get people to use its
    website.
    Layoffs are anticipated. But agency officials said the realignment
    plan was crafted with the goal of minimizing staff reductions, because
    that would only increase wait times further.
    The branches will close, in the following order, between July and
    September: Lowell, North Attleborough, Cambridge (Cambridgeside
    Galleria), New Bedford, Springfield (Eastfield Mall),
    Southbridge, Framingham, Falmouth, Eastham, and Beverly. The Chinatown
    branch will close in December.
    In addition to opening at the Natick and Charlton plazas, mitigation
    branches will open at the Cape Cod Canal Visitors center at the
    Sagamore Bridge and on Route 1 in Peabody.
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