BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE TRANSPORTATION & HOUSING COMMITTEE BILL NO: AB 1404
SENATOR MARK DESAULNIER, CHAIRMAN AUTHOR: ASSEMBLY
JUDICIARY
VERSION: 6/15/12
Analysis by: Carrie Cornwell FISCAL: yes
Hearing date: July 3, 2012
SUBJECT:
Vehicle registration fee surcharges: vehicle theft programs
DESCRIPTION:
This bill permits the County of Los Angeles to increase the
surcharge from $1 to $2 that it imposes on vehicle registrations
in its jurisdiction to fund vehicle theft prevention,
investigation, and prosecution programs.
ANALYSIS:
Existing law establishes a basic vehicle registration fee of
$46, plus a $23 surcharge for additional personnel for the
California Highway Patrol (CHP) for the new or renewal
registration of most vehicles. Existing law also authorizes
local agencies to impose separate vehicle registration fee
surcharges in their respective jurisdictions for a variety of
special programs, including $1 for a program to deter,
investigate, and prosecute vehicle theft. A county board of
supervisors must adopt a resolution to impose this $1 surcharge
on every new or renewal vehicle registration, plus another $2 on
commercial vehicles, within the county.
The Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) collects the surcharge
and remits those fees, after deducting its own administrative
costs, to the State Controller. State law continuously
appropriates these funds, which the State Controller disburses
to each participating county based on the number of registered
vehicles within that county.
Each quarter a participating county must submit to CHP a report
on the expenditures and activity, and by August 31st every year,
each county must submit a report to the State Controller that
describes for the fiscal year that just ended:
AB 1404 (ASM. JUDICIARY) Page 2
Total revenues received from the surcharge by the county;
Total expenditures by the county on eligible programs;
A summary of vehicle theft abatement activities and other
programs funded by the surcharge;
The total number of stolen vehicles recovered and their value;
The total number of vehicles stolen and a comparison to the
preceding fiscal year; and
Any unexpended surcharge revenues received.
The Controller may suspend collection of the fee if the local
agency is not reporting as required in law or is not expending
funds as authorized. The Controller annually reports to the
Legislature on this program.
This bill permits the County of Los Angeles to increase its $1
vehicle registration surcharge for vehicle theft prevention to
$2 through a resolution its board of supervisors adopts. Los
Angeles County must submit this resolution to DMV at least six
months prior to the date DMV will begin collecting the $2
surcharge.
COMMENTS:
1.Purpose . SB 2139 (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
AB 1404 (ASM. JUDICIARY) Page 3
worth nearly $400 million, and prosecuted over 4,000 cases of
automobile 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.
2.Commercial vehicle surcharge not included . This bill provides
only for an increase in the registration surcharge of
noncommercial vehicles from $1 to $2 but does not provide for
a commensurate increase of the surcharge on commercial vehicle
registrations in Los Angeles County. The committee may wish
to amend the bill so that if Los Angeles County were to
increase its vehicle theft programs' surcharge to $2 on
vehicles generally, it would also increase the surcharge to $4
on commercial vehicle registrations.
3.Proposition 26 . 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 be a
two-thirds vote of the electorate in a county.
4.Back to Rules . The Rules Committee originally referred this
bill just to this committee. The Rules Committee has since
requested that the committee, if it approves the bill, send it
back to Rules for consideration of a second referral.
Assembly Votes:
Previous votes are not relevant.
AB 1404 (ASM. JUDICIARY) Page 4
POSITIONS: (Communicated to the committee before noon on
Wednesday, June 27,
2012)
SUPPORT: Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (sponsor)
Greater Los Angeles New Car Dealers Association
OPPOSED: None received.