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By Dan Gunderson

Minnesota higher education officials are confident a change in state law will ease a backlog of students waiting to take a commercial drivers license test.

Minnesota State Community and Technical College President Carrie Brimhall said students in the truck driving CDL program at the Moorhead campus have been waiting as long as two months for a behind-the-wheel test to get their license.

“Imagine the time and resources lost by companies while they waited for these folks to get trained,” said Brimhall.

Carl Borleis with the Minnesota State Transportation Center of Excellence said the delay is affecting hundreds of students who complete a truck driving course at schools across the state.

“Right now, there’s only a 30 day window that you can look at DVS testing sites and it’s first come first served,” he said. “Some of our schools are literally 30 days out looking, getting on first thing in the morning and trying to reserve spots for the students.”

The delay in testing can cause a snowball effect according to Borleis, as students who wait weeks for a test fail because they’ve lost some of the skills they learned and need to retest before earning their license.

State lawmakers said the change was a good example of bipartisan legislative action.

“We were able to identify a problem, a barrier for students here at M State and across the entire state for getting into in demand transportation professions,” said Sen. Jordan Rasmussen, R-Fergus Falls.

The wait to license new drivers is exacerbating a wide ranging shortage of truck drivers.

“I’ve been in many conversations, whether it’s been with the city, whether it’s been with the county or tribal nations in this region about the lack of drivers who have licensed CDL and we’re waiting weeks,” said Rep. Heather Keeler, DFL-Moorhead.

The law change allowing expanded use of third party testers took effect in July, but Borleis said it will likely take several months to certify new staff and ease the backlog of students waiting to get on the road.