Schwermer indicated it would be natural for the Bureau of Criminal Identification or the state driver license division to take the data, although they are not set up for the new information. Bart Blackstock, bureau chief of the driver license division within the state's Department of Public Safety, explained that his hearings officers are only in a position to determine whether someone's license should be revoked, not check a person's entire history of DUI.

"We have no need for these new data elements," he told a legislative committee Wednesday.

And Ed McConkie, new head of the Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice, which now supervises DUI issues, doesn't know how it will all pan out.

"It's a mammoth project, and we still have a lot to figure out," he said.

No departments have tallied the costs to restructure their computer systems to be the main receptacle for DUI data info, and the technology subcommittee hasn't yet figured out what it will take to coordinate communication between all the myriad systems in the complicated morass of DUI concerns.

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E-mail: lucy@desnews.com