The new legislation takes effect Friday, Aug. 28. So far, 28 license offices around Missouri have been awarded using the new competitive bidding process.

Immediately after taking office in January, Nixon ended a longstanding tradition of political patronage by putting up for competitive bid the state’s 183 license offices.

“For too long, the only meaningful factor in determining who ran our state’s license offices was political support,” Nixon said at the signing in Springfield. “In signing these bills into law today, I’m proud to know that these reforms will be in place even after I leave office.”

During previous administrations, license offices were usually awarded to political contributors or campaign supporters based wholly on the will of the governor. Nixon’s administration instead implemented a competitive bidding process for license offices in which the Department of Revenue takes into account a variety of factors from bids — including planned hours of operation, the experience of the bidder, planned location, and business factors such as credit and financing — to ensure that offices are awarded to the bidder who will provide the best customer service. The new process also includes preferences for nonprofit and civic organizations and for bidders who pledge to return some of their proceeds to the state.

Further, the process implemented a component of transparency to the license office system that had been absent under the old model. Once an office has been awarded through the competitive bidding process, the bid documents and scores generated by the staff members who review them are available to the public online, Nixon said in a press release.

The license office reforms were endorsed by both chambers of the General Assembly, which overwhelmingly passed legislation that codified Nixon’s reforms in statute. House Bill 381 passed by a vote of 149-7 in the House and without opposition in the Senate. The vote on House Bill 683, which included the license office reforms and numerous other transportation provisions, was 108-52 in the House and 30-3 in the Senate.