BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 2131
Page 1
Date of Hearing: May 4, 2016
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Lorena Gonzalez, Chair
AB
2131 (Maienschein) - As Amended April 18, 2016
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|Policy |Transportation |Vote:|16 - 0 |
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| |Agriculture | |10 - 0 |
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Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: NoReimbursable: No
SUMMARY:
This bill requires the Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA)
to apply to the DMV to sponsor the "Imagine" specialized license
plate, and continuously-appropriates all net revenues from sales
of this plate to assist food banks in California. The plates
would contain an image of a duly-licensed self-portrait of John
Lennon to the left of the numerical series.
AB 2131
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FISCAL EFFECT:
1)Potential one-time special fund costs of approximately
$440,000 to DMV to establish the specialized license plate
program, including computer programming changes and updating
forms. Pursuant to current law, DMV will make computer
programming and form changes only after program applications
meet a 7,500-application threshold. Therefore, the DMV will
incur these costs only if it receives enough applications to
require the DHCS to implement the program. The DMV will incur
minor ongoing costs to continue issuing specialty license
plates and renewals under the program. All of the DMV's
initial and ongoing costs will be covered by a portion of the
additional $50 fee paid for original specialized license
plates and the additional $40 fee to renew such plates.
2)Minor costs to CDFA to submit the program application and
license prototype to DMV, design and print the license plate
application, and collect and hold applications and fees until
7,500 applications are received.
3)Potential ongoing revenue, continuously-appropriated to assist
the state's food banks.
4)Current law requires that specified additional funds related
to personalizing a specialized license plate must be deposited
into the Environmental License Plate Fund (ELPF). This bill
instead directs all revenues to the newly created Imagine
Account, for food banks, after deducting administrative costs.
This would result in the diversion of any revenues associated
with personalization from the ELPF to the new account.
COMMENTS:
1)Specialized License Plates. Prior to 2007, any new special
interest license plate required specific legislative
authorization. This practice was held to be unconstitutional
AB 2131
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in that the Legislature approved some of the plates, and
rejected others, using no standardized or objective criteria
for those decisions. Pursuant to AB 84 (Leslie)/Statutes of
2006, the DMV will issue specialized license plates when
sponsored by a state agency, the plate's message and resulting
revenues support that agency's program, and at least 7,500
paid license applications have been received. The
7,500-application threshold attempts to assure that DMV's
startup costs are fully covered, by the portion of the
registration fee surcharge directed to the department, and to
avoid a proliferation of different types of plates, which can
be troublesome from a law enforcement perspective.
2)Purpose. The author seeks to provide support and revenue to
California's emergency food safety net without taking
resources from the General Fund. According to the California
Association of Food Banks, the sponsor of this bill, more than
five million Californians, including one in four children,
face food insecurity every day and many of these individuals
rely on the services of food banks for access to nutrition.
The author argues that the revenue generated from this
specialized license plate program will be instrumental in
funding California food banks to reach the goal of ending
hunger in California. In 2004, the State of Florida enacted a
well-received specialty license plate bearing the John Lennon
theme.
3)Related Legislation. Currently there are six other bills in
the legislative process that would direct a state agency to
sponsor a specialized license plate for a specific cause.
Three bills were all held on Suspense last year in Senate
Appropriations: AB 63 (Bonilla) to raise money for school
safety, AB 270 (Nazarian) to raise money for diabetes
awareness, and AB 932 (Daly) to raise money for local parks
and recreation grant programs. AB 1884 (Harper), pending on
this committee's Suspense file, raises money for mental health
AB 2131
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awareness. AB 2303 (Holden), on today's committee agenda,
raises money for the state's Active Transportation Program. AB
2253 (Grove), also on today's agenda, raises money to support
veterans' programs.
4)Prior Legislation. Since 2011, 12 bills have been introduced
establishing specialized license plate program, of which four
have been chaptered: Salton Sea restoration [AB 1096
(Nestande), Chapter 353, Statutes of 2014], kidney disease
research [AB 2450 (Logue), Chapter 359, Statutes of 2014],
breast cancer awareness [AB 49 (Buchanan), Chapter 351,
Statutes of 2014], and domestic violence prevention [AB 2321
(Gomez), Chapter 358, Statutes of 2014].
Analysis Prepared by:Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916)
319-2081