BILL ANALYSIS
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair
2097 (Miller)
Hearing Date: 08/02/2010 Amended: 05/28/2010
Consultant: Mark McKenzie Policy Vote: T&H 9-0
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BILL SUMMARY: AB 2097 would require specified persons who have
requested confidentiality of their home address in Department of
Motor Vehicles (DMV) records to provide DMV with a current
employment address, and makes the following changes to improve
the collections of traffic, parking, and toll road violations:
Require DMV to update the form to request address
confidentiality to include the requirement for providing a
current employment address.
Requires persons who have requested address confidentiality to
notify DMV within 10 days of changes to an employment address.
Require the human resources offices to provide the updated
forms to all new applicants and existing enrollees on or after
January 1, 2011, and forward all completed and updated forms
to DMV's Confidential Records Unit by April 1, 2012.
Authorizes a notice of traffic, parking, or toll road
violation to be sent to the person's employment address for
purposes of serving a notice to appear.
Require DMV to refuse renewal of a vehicle registration if a
person qualifying for address confidentiality receives a
notice of violation at his or her workplace and has unpaid
parking or traffic citation penalties.
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Fiscal Impact (in thousands)
Major Provisions 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 Fund
DMV record updates significant costs, likely in the range of
Special*
$1,000 - $3,000 to manually update DMV
records by 2012 to reflect employer
addresses
CHP address reporting unknown, potentially significant costs
toSpecial*
process updated forms with employees
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* Motor Vehicle Account
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STAFF COMMENTS: This bill meets the criteria for referral to the
Suspense File.
Existing law provides for certain persons to request that their
home address in DMV records be kept confidential. This
provision applies to certain public officials, federal, state,
and county employees, and public safety personnel, as specified.
Confidential addresses may only be disclosed to the courts, a
law enforcement agency, the Board of Equalization, and certain
attorneys and government agencies. Requests for address
confidentiality are made through the qualifying employer and
forwarded to DMV, who keeps hard copies of the records, which
makes retrieval a time consuming manual process. DMV indicates
that it currently keeps about 1.5 million records confidential
through this program.
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AB 2097 (Miller)
The current confidentiality process has kept many local agencies
from collecting on delinquent parking, traffic, and toll
violations. Although law enforcement and local governments can
request that confidential addresses be unmasked for purposes of
enforcing violations, the process is time consuming. Also, many
local governments are contracting with private entities for the
collection of traffic fines and these entities do not have
access to confidential DMV records. This bill is intended to
allow for a process of enhanced collections while protecting the
home address of persons eligible for confidentiality.
DMV indicates that the bill places a significant burden on the
department to obtain and process employment address information
for the 1.5 million records it currently has on hand. Since the
deadline for submitting employment information is not until
April of 2012, it is assumed that the costs can be spread over
two fiscal years, but most of the revised applications are
likely to be submitted to DMV in 2011-12. DMV indicates that
the total costs are likely in the range of $1 - $3 million.
Costs to update the confidentiality request form are minor and
absorbable.
CHP, as a large public safety employer whose officers are
eligible for address confidentiality, would also have
significant costs to process applications for its 11,000
employees and forward updated address information to DMV.
Actual costs are unknown and would depend upon the number of
employees seeking confidentiality.
This bill could also result in increased revenue collections of
hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to local agencies
related to increased collections on parking, traffic, and toll
road violations.