BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó



                                                                AB 1404
                                                                Page  1

        CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
        AB 1404 (Feuer and Davis)
        As Amended  August 9, 2012
        Majority vote
         
         
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        |ASSEMBLY: |     |(May 16, 2011)  |SENATE: |22-16|(August 23, 2012)    |
        |          |     |                |        |     |                     |
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                  (vote not relevant)


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        |COMMITTEE VOTE:  |8-5  |(August 28, 2012)   |RECOMMENDATION: |concur    |
        |(TRANS.)         |     |                    |                |          |
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        Original Committee Reference:    ED  .

         SUMMARY  :  Allows several counties to increase the surcharge from $1 
        to $2 that they impose on vehicle registrations in their respective 
        jurisdictions to fund vehicle theft prevention, investigation, and 
        prosecution programs.  

         The Senate amendments  :  

        1)Delete the prior contents of the bill.  

        2)Permit the Counties of Los Angeles, San Diego and San Bernardino 
          to increase their $1 vehicle registration surcharges for vehicle 
          theft prevention to $2 if the increase is adopted by their boards 
          of supervisors by resolution.  

        3)Require, in those counties that elect to increase the $1 fee to 
          $2, that the existing $2 vehicle registration surcharge for 
          commercial vehicles be raised to $4.  

        4)Require the counties to submit these resolutions to the 
          Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) at least six months prior to 
          the date DMV begins collecting the increased surcharge.  

         EXISTING LAW  :  

        1)Allows counties, by resolution of the county board of 








                                                                AB 1404
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          supervisors, to impose a $1 fee to be paid at the time of 
          registration or renewal of registration of every vehicle 
          registered to an address within that county, except trailers and 
          those vehicles expressly exempted from payment of registration 
          fees.  The fees, after deduction of DMV's administrative costs 
          are paid quarterly to the California State Controller 
          (Controller).  

        2)Requires all commercial motor vehicles registered in those 
          counties to pay an additional service fee of $2.  

        3)Appropriates the funds continually, without regard to fiscal 
          years, for the administrative costs of the Controller, and for 
          disbursement by the Controller to each participating county, 
          based upon the number of vehicles registered, or whose 
          registrations are renewed, to addresses within that county.  

        4)Requires money allocated to a county to be expended exclusively 
          to fund programs that enhance the capacity of local police and 
          prosecutors to deter, investigate, and prosecute vehicle theft 
          crimes.  In any county with a population of 250,000 or less, the 
          money must be expended exclusively for those vehicle theft crime 
          programs and for the prosecution of crimes involving driving 
          while under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or both, or 
          vehicular manslaughter, or any combination of those crimes.  

        5)Prohibits this money from being expended to offset a reduction in 
          any other source of funds, or for any purpose not authorized 
          under this statute.  

        6)Requires each participating county to submit a quarterly 
          expenditure and activity report to the designated statewide 
          Vehicle Theft Investigation and Apprehension Coordinator in the 
          California Highway Patrol (CHP).  

        7)Requires participating counties to issue a fiscal year-end report 
          to the Controller that includes a detailed accounting of the 
          funds received and expended in the immediately preceding fiscal 
          year, including specified information on expenditures.  

        8)Suspends the fee for one year in any county that fails to submit 
          the report.  

        9)Requires the Controller annually to prepare and submit to the 
          Legislature revenue and expenditure summary for each 








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          participating county that includes the total revenues received by 
          each county, the total expenditures by each county, and the 
          unexpended revenues for each county.  

        10)Sunsets all of these provisions on January 1, 2018.  

         AS PASSED BY THE ASSEMBLY  , this bill dealt with the licensure of 
        attorneys by the State Bar.  

         FISCAL EFFECT  :  According to the Senate Appropriations Committee, 
        all administrative costs to DMV and the State Controller's Office 
        will be fully recovered from fee revenues collected.  Additionally, 
        there will be potential revenue gains of approximately $7.2 million 
        for Los Angeles County, $2.5 million for San Diego County, and $1.6 
        million for San Bernardino County if increases to vehicle 
        surcharges are approved.  

         COMMENTS  :  This bill is substantially similar to AB 1768 (Davis), 
        which failed in the Assembly Transportation Committee 7-4 (eight 
        votes needed for passage) in April.  AB 1768 would have allowed for 
        a $3 fee and applied only to Los Angeles County.  

        SB 2139 (Ed Davis), Chapter 1670, Statutes of 1990, authorized 
        counties to impose a $1 surcharge on vehicle registrations to fund 
        vehicle theft programs.  Since then, the cost of these programs has 
        far outpaced the increased number of registered vehicles on the 
        road.  

        Forty-seven counties impose the surcharge, including Los Angeles 
        County, where, in 1993, the Board of Supervisors imposed a $1 fee 
        to create a vehicle theft program called the Taskforce for Regional 
        Auto-theft Prevention (TRAP).  

        TRAP is a multi-agency task force that investigates, prosecutes, 
        and deters vehicle theft and fraud on a coordinated and cooperative 
        basis.  The author and sponsors report that TRAP has been highly 
        successful in combating vehicle theft and fraud by focusing on 
        organized vehicle theft rings, "chop shops," international auto 
        theft rings that steal vehicles and ship them to other countries, 
        individuals who obtain vehicles by fraud, and other forms of 
        vehicle theft.  

        Los Angeles County reports that since 1993, TRAP has made 
        approximately 9,300 arrests, recovered over 23,000 vehicles worth 
        nearly $400 million, and prosecuted over 4,000 cases of automobile 








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        theft.  In recent years TRAP has had to reduce the number of 
        personnel assigned to the program due to increases in operating, 
        fuel, and equipment costs.  The sponsor states that these 
        reductions have negatively impacted TRAP's ability to effectively 
        combat auto theft in Los Angeles County and notes that in 2004 TRAP 
        employed 71 personnel to combat auto theft at a cost of $7.3 
        million.  This year, TRAP employed only 29 people at a cost of $7.2 
        million.  As time goes on, in the not-so-distant future the TRAP 
        team will not have sufficient funding to do its job.  This bill 
        would give Los Angeles County the authority to double the funds it 
        has for the TRAP program.  
        
        Proposition 26 requires that any "change in statute which results 
        in a taxpayer paying a higher tax must be imposed by an act passed 
        by not less than two-thirds of all members elected to each of the 
        two houses of the Legislature."  This bill does not result in a 
        taxpayer paying a higher tax but delegates to the Los Angeles 
        County Board of Supervisors the authority to impose a higher 
        surcharge on vehicle registrations to fund a specific government 
        function.  Ultimately, the Los Angeles County Counsel would have to 
        determine a vote threshold at the county level.  So while this bill 
        is a majority vote measure in the Legislature, the local action to 
        increase the registration surcharge may require a two-thirds vote 
        of the electorate in a county.  

        The current contents of this bill have not been heard by any 
        Assembly committee.  


         Analysis Prepared by  :    Howard Posner / TRANS. / (916) 319-2093 


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