At the restaurant, I’ve received no less than 30 letters from VDOL since we have opened, more than any other state (or city) agency.
I deal with some fairly serious agencies, the department of taxes, the health department, the department of liquor control (DLC), but yet the most intensive mailer seems to be VDOL.
I received a letter today, see the attached PDF. It’s great that in the year 2012, at least one state agency is going to embrace technology, to make communication happen at a faster rate, while, hopefully, cutting expenses.
It’s great that your agency is going to start to communicate faster, while doing more communication than any other state agency seems to, at least to my small business. I think it’s going to help save the environment, afterall, we do live in a “green” state.
I think it amazing that when I lived in Arizona, I could interact with the MVD 15 years ago through their website, perform registration renewals and such, and now, here we are in 2012, your agency is going to be at least using emails.
Maybe if we are using emails, you’ll catch people like the guy that is trying to scam you, using my insurance. Maybe if we are using emails, you’ll realize quicker that because my business was closed for 10 consecutive days or more, that it’s a new business, not a preexisting business, and therefore, I’m on my own, not part of the previous owners, as your department told me last week. Then this week, I get a letter telling me otherwise, which I suspect crossed in the mail.
The only thing VDOL, aren’t you the agency that’s supposed to be working to keep Vermonters employed? Aren’t you the agency that is supposed to make sure that there is work for Vermonters? Isn’t it your statutory job to track the data, and make sure that we are employing more Vermonters?
Do you think that instead of employing ICF International out of Virginia to call all business owners that deal with your huge bureaucracy, you could have employed, either a Vermont firm, or someone in state government to do this? Or maybe, just maybe, talked to another state agency that might have the data on business owners, and done a joint database update?
Let’s see. What other state agency might know the names of business owners registered with the state. I’m thinking the Corporations Commission and Secretary of State might be able to work that out with you. And with Jim Condos’ desire for all to be open and above board, perhaps, just perhaps, he could have work with your agency to do a single database update with all of our email addresses, instead of you contracting a Virginia based company.
Or better yet, why didn’t you employ a Vermont based technology company to make the data come to you? I would have certainly been up for entering my data into a State run database, saving me the phone call, the chance of typos, while getting the data entered in a timely manner.
I’m just saying. My experience with your agency is that no one thinks. No one applies critical thought to, when it’s needed.