Why yards miss notices
Most yards had the software. They did not have someone whose job it was.
63
Alleged violations for failing to timely send or publish notice, FY2025: the most common alleged VSF violation in TDLR's list.
29
Disciplinary actions for the same violation, FY2025: also first in that year's list.
$1,734
Average penalty on FY2025 VSF orders.
Source: TDLR VSF Complaint Statistics, FY2025. The same violation was also the top alleged violation in FY2022 (118) and FY2021 (83); in FY2021 it ranked fourth for disciplinary actions, so it is not first every year for discipline. TDLR's 4,547 figure is total licensees, not yards, so we do not use it as a count of facilities. FY2025 PDFFY2022 PDFFY2021 PDFAll TDLR statistics
The pattern
A staffing problem wearing a software costume.
The office manager does intake, releases, phones and letters. A vacation, a resignation or a busy rotation month and the letters slide first, because nobody is at the window asking for them.
The clocks
Two of three deadlines do not start at arrival.
The second notice and the 30-day wait run from postmarks, not from the day the car came in. Software that only tracks lot days drifts. See all three clocks
The fix
A name next to every date.
One accountable clerk, one Monday board, one exception queue.
Find out which cars are already late.
Send your volume and roughly how many cars are past day 5 with no notice. A person reviews it by hand and replies by email.