BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular Session
SB 257 (Bates) - Vehicles: Gold Star Family license plates
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|Version: April 6, 2015 |Policy Vote: T. & H. 11 - 0 |
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|Urgency: No |Mandate: No |
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|Hearing Date: May 18, 2015 |Consultant: Mark McKenzie |
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This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill
Summary: SB 257 would require the Department of Motor Vehicles
(DMV) to offer Gold Star Family specialized license plates as
personalized plates, upon payment of a $49 fee.
Fiscal
Impact:
One-time DMV costs in the range of $400,000 in 2015-16,
primarily related to programming changes to allow for
personalization of Gold Star Family plates as well as
changes to forms and the department's website. (Motor
Vehicle Account)
Minor future revenue gains will partially offset DMV's
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initial programming costs. It is unlikely that the full
costs would be offset in the foreseeable future. At $49 per
applicant, DMV would need to issue 8,163 personalized Gold
Star Family plates to recover all of the initial costs.
Background: Existing law authorizes DMV to establish specialized license
plate programs sponsored by state agencies, upon submittal of
7,500 applications and corresponding fees for a new specialized
plate. The collection of applications and fees on the front end
ensures there are sufficient revenues to cover DMV's startup
costs, and sufficient demand to justify the establishment of a
new plate program.
Existing law, SB 1455 (Cogdill), Chap. 309/2008, authorized the
Department of Veterans Affairs (CalVet) to sponsor a Gold Star
Family specialized license plate program. Instead of requiring
7,500 pre-paid applications, SB 1455 authorized CalVet to
solicit public and private donations for deposit into a special
fund to cover DMV's administrative costs to establish the Gold
Star Family plate program. CalVet must certify eligibility from
an applicant and authorize DMV to issue Gold Star Family license
plates for a vehicle owned by an eligible family member of a
member of the U.S. Armed Forces who was killed in the line of
duty. Existing law exempts an applicant for these plates from
paying specified fees for the issuance and renewal of special
interest license plates, and specifies the plates may only be
issued in a sequential series. As such, they may not be issued
as personalized plates, referred to in statute as "environmental
license plates."
DMV began issuing Gold Star Family license plates in November of
2010 and has issued plates to 733 vehicles to date. There are
currently 658 registered vehicles with Gold Star Family plates.
Proposed Law:
SB 257 would explicitly authorize Gold Star Family license
plates to be personalized if the family member pays a $49 fee
for the personalization of the plates. The fees would be
deposited into the Motor Vehicle Account until DMV's initial
costs to provide for personalization are covered, after which
the fees would be deposited into the Veterans Service Office
Fund.
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Related
Legislation: SB 1282 (Knight, 2014) would have required DMV to
issue personalized Gold Star Family license plates, but did not
require payment of fees to personalize the plates. That bill
was held on this Committee's Suspense File last year.
Staff
Comments: As noted above, existing law requires that Gold Star
Family specialized license plates may only be issued in a
sequential series. This provision was negotiated among DMV, the
author, and sponsor, and included in the authorizing statute in
the interest of keeping the costs of establishing the program as
low as possible to ease CalVet's fundraising obligation and to
expedite the initiation of the program. This bill requires DMV
to expand the program to provide for the issuance of
personalized plates. Contrary to the spirit of this and other
specialized license plate programs that provide for DMV's full
cost recovery, this bill would impose significant costs on DMV
to conduct programming and other administrative functions
necessary to allow for personalization of Gold Star Family
plates. SB 257 does allow for some cost recovery by charging a
$49 fee for personalization, but since only 733 Gold Star Family
plates have been issued to date, it is unlikely that fee
revenues would be sufficient to reimburse DMV for implementation
costs anytime soon.
Staff notes that DMV has a significant programming backlog of
federal and state mandates. These include federally-mandated
changes to the Commercial Driver License System, compliance with
which is tied to federal transportation funding, and state
mandates such as programming for the veteran designation on
driver's licenses and IDs (AB 935, Chap 644/2014) and the
issuance of free ID cards for homeless applicants (AB 1733, Chap
764/2014). Given the backlog, it would be difficult for DMV to
complete the programming necessary to implement this bill by the
January 1, 2016 operative date without impacting currently
scheduled programming priorities.
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