S.B. 91 Motor Vehicle Registration Services Amendments: transcript

Go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chair, Is this on? Yes, it is. Okay, thank you. I appreciate that. Sorry, it's a little bit late as you know how that is. You get caught in the hallways. Uh, this bill must be 91. This is the exact same bill that I brought up a year ago, passed this committee, passed the Senate unanimity, got over to the house, passed unanimity in the transportation committee in the house, and then got circled and on the, uh, board and did not, uh, pass, uh, basically in this a little bit of complication. We talked a little bit about this, uh, during interim, and I appreciate the good, the good, uh, uh, chair Harper in helping. We are gonna try and get this as a committee bill in November. Unfortunately, I had some complications. Could not be there when we had the committee hearing in November. Uh, so we're going to just go through the process. Uh, basically what this is, and let me explain a little bit. In the state of Utah, 21 out of the 29 counties, uh, have the county runs the DMV offices. So in the five largest counties, Weber Davis, Salt Lake City, Utah, and Washington County, DMV offices are owned and operated and run by the DMV office, which is obviously in the tax commission. Also, there's three smaller counties, Uintah, carbon and severe. Also, 20 something years ago, they denied and did not wanna sign the agreement at that time. So the DMV offices in Uintah Carbon and severe are owned and operated by the DMV office, which of course, those DMV offices are paid for by out of state funds from the state, the whole state. And that agreement was in 2002. And basically what it was, it was a very complicated agreement where, uh, the DMV would reimburse the counties to run their own DMV offices to try and provide a service for their, for their constituents and their citizens. Because now a lot of people are doing online and other ways of registration, though they do not collect those fees. And the, the fees they're being reimbursed to run their own DMV offices is very, very inadequate. Um, and so the fees that are collected, which, um, it's, it's $56 and 75 cents currently, uh, $198 million is collected and goes to individual accounts. The Transportation Investment Fund, my calculations are receives about 105 million transportation fund, about 80 million. There's also other rural transportation infrastructure, motor safe safety, uh, vehicle safety impact. So there's other, there, there is specific line item that these go into. And, um, so like I said, around $200 million collected from these registration fees. Uh, currently the DMV services that are provided by the counties, there's an average of around a hundred thousand dollars of county funds that are being used, um, to, to run these state offices. Um, and of course, like I mentioned, all, all the state taxpayers are paying for the DMV offices in these other eight counties. Um, and we know that in the state of Utah, there are a number of, of, of citizens that travel to other, uh, DMV offices. I, I've, I've, uh, got a couple of examples here. Uh, um, I know with, with Box Elder, there's a number of, of, of constituents. In fact, I I'm not sure if, um, of commissioner, uh, Lee Perry's here today or not, but he talked to me about the number of, um, they have, they have some, uh, Spanish speaking, uh, people at the DMV office in Box Elder. They have a number of, of Spanish speaking, um, citizens that come down to Box Elder to have their paperwork done with somebody that that speaks their language. Um, there's, there's other examples. Cash County, we have a large number of student population that comes up and uses this, our facility at Cash. We have a number of people that on their recreation, uh, boats, boat, um, uh, registrations and ATVs, uh, that use other, uh, DMV offices throughout the state that are run by the counties. Uh, the way what this bill does it, it is gonna accomplish two goals. First, uh, cash County will no longer have a DMV office that's run by Cash County. Instead, the state, like they do in the other five largest counties, will come in and build a building and have staff that just like they did 20 years ago and 20 years ago when they started this, cash County today has more population than Washington County did 20 something years ago when they, when they started the DMV office. So other counties besides Cash County will operate the DMV offices with receiving additional distribution from the tax commission per transaction of how many they do in each county. This additional distribution will be adjusted for inflation and carefully crafted based on the size of the county. Along with that, I know there's been some real concerns with, um, with the training, uh, that's necessary for these, uh, county DMV offices with making sure that they have the, so the correct software and that they're taking the, um, adequate, um, um, steps to protect the, the data that's in the database. So, um, approximately right now, uh, what this bill does, it raises the registration fee, um, from $56 and 75 cents up a dollar 25 to $58. And I don't take lightly that I'm raising the fee, a dollar 25, that was the minimum amount with 3.5 million registered vehicles in the state of Utah. Um, that will generate around 4.1 million. And of course, the first part of it's gonna go towards establishing a DMV state office in Cash County. And then each county will be reimbursed based on, um, the county size based on how many vehicles that they, that they, the transactions they did in 2023. I can go through these. The first one is Box Elder. Uh, basically they're gonna receive around 265,000. They roughly collected, they collect over $5 million in registration fees in Box Elder. I could go through, we have all, uh, all the, the additional, um, 21 counties here. Um, so, so, uh, I understand, like I said, raising the fees. This has been a problem going on for a number of years, and I've, I've got with me our, our good, um, county commissioner, uh, here with me, David Erickson. Um, I, I think what I'll do is just, uh, for, uh, forego the rest of my presentation and have him speak and we'll, happy, happy to answer any other questions that anybody have. And hopefully this is this, you remember this from, um, um, you know, last year when we presented. Uh, so go ahead, commissioner.

Yes. Well, I appreciate that. And for one, we thank you for all your service, but uh, also, uh, we would like to thank Senator Wilson for campaigning this. Uh, he, uh, it's invaluable what's, uh, kind of occurred, uh, just in Cash County, for example, our annual costs, uh, roughly just in, we're talking just in personnel, has been roughly about, uh, that 290 to 300,000 and our reimbursement has been, uh, in other about, uh, 500 and well just under 600,000. And with that difference right there, we as a county are having to come up with that difference. And that's just in personnel. That's not, uh, in, uh, opportunity, opportunity costs for our space that we're actually providing. That's not in the building costs and things like that, which really has hurt just in the 11 years that I've been on the, the county council, I kind of was, I was looking at that and we got like, you know, almost three and a half million dollars that we put out of, uh, costs that we as a, just as a county are actually to are, uh, are bearing, uh, to, uh, for this state run organiz or state run program. Um, the other thing that, uh, as we look into is that, uh, an old Box Elder county, I've talked with Lee Perry and, and he, we were on the phone earlier too, and he mentioned this to if you, if he'd share that, he said anywhere from 30 to 40% of the people that come into their DMV are actually coming up from like Weber County for one, where they're, they have to get appointments where they have to get to, uh, um, you know, it's, it's crowded and long waits and things like that. And they're coming up there again. They may be going to malad to get a lottery ticket, I don't know. But either way, they're going to, they're stopping there because it's, uh, of one, it's, it's one, they can speak the language. Two, it's uh, that it's, uh, I guess the availability and people that they talk to there, that they can, they can get it done and they can get it done on their time. I've talked with other commissioners of these 21 counties, they themselves also, some of 'em have to travel an hour and a half. You know, they got, they got such distances just to get to, uh, where they can pay these things. And if they happen to be closed or something's happened, um, they're just the inability there that to, to take care of the, of the patrons that we have in this county. Um, that's kind of the, the biggest things. We, we are lacking some space ourselves within our admin building, um, that we could, we really need, really need bad, it's high dollar space per square foot and uh, uh, and it's a service that again, we've been, we've been bearing for I guess, too long, so. Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm looking on line, uh, 50 and the distribution described in subsection three A, is that new to this part bill or is that there the

Last Yeah, most of that is just current code in, in, in the, in the bill. I'll have to look at it, see, but most of it is all current, current code one 50. I don't remember them distributing the funds after they collected them.

Okay. We delayed it. I

Think it's, yeah, it's, it's a delay.

Okay. I'm sorry. Okay.

That's what I, that is, that is obviously it's our line is new code, so yeah, Sorry. Okay.

And, uh, we were always distributing it the same way in the previous tempation of this bill, or is that kind of new to this one? Uh,

This is all the same code as we had. I'm sure we should probably change the year because here later, but it should be all the same.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And

that concludes your presentation? You Know, it does. I'll, I'll sell later. Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. I'm Commissioner John Valentine. I'm the chairman of the Utah State Tax Commission. We have no administrative concerns with this bill. We can administer it in the way that the senator has described. You should also know that we have no opposition to the bill, and just as last year we had no opposition. We still have no opposition to the bill. We can do this the way the bill is written. I want to be on the record so everyone knows that the tax commission has no opposition to this bill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank You.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee. Dennis Blackburn, Wayne County Commissioner. Uh, I'd just like to speak really in favor of this bill. It is, uh, the DMV is in our assessor's office and the 75 cents we get per transaction, we have a hard time just keeping a deputy clerk in there to help make this work. So this is really something we need. So thank you.

I'm Commissioner Bill Cox from Rich County. And, uh, with, with Bear Lake being the way it is, uh, a lot of, a lot of the people stop in Rich County to register their boats and their snowmobiles and their cars because there's no line. And so, uh, I would say I don't, I don't even dare say, but I would say 90% of the registrations that take place in our office are actually people from along the Wasatch front. So as we staff that office, um, with the amount of registrations we do, and the money that we give back just doesn't even come close to, to meeting, uh, the, the really the, the salaries of those that we have to have there. Um, on a busy weekend, particularly coming into like the 4th of July or, or even Memorial Day, um, sometimes there'll be as many as 20 vehicles parked out in front of the courthouse with boats or, or RVs or something like that. And they're not, I mean, they're, they're second home people and we're glad to have them, but they're, they're a burden basically on our office where we just try to keep, uh, you know, an office there with space and, and that, so this would be extremely helpful to us to, to meet the needs of our budget, to provide the personnel we need to perform those actions. Thank you.

Thank you. I'd make a motion that Senate Bill 91 motor vehicle registrations passed with a favorable recommendation.

Appreciate it, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I, we've been literally looking at this, or I think it's been three years, at least two and a half years. We look at this trying to, trying to solve this problem. And I really believe, I don't like raising fees. It's, it, it, it is not easy, but I think it's the easiest and best solution to try and give the resources to these county run DMV offices without taking funds away from the transportation department and also without taking fees away from our current DMV offices, uh, in, in the, in the main five big counties. So, uh, I appreciate your support.

Yeah, it's good Bill. And I think raising the user fee is a small amount. It solves what we need to do.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I know.

Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. Appreciate that. And committee members. Thank you very much. Uh, apologize. I was just in another committee. I'm a little bit late, but, uh, appreciate you, um, SB 91. I do have a sub whenever it's appropriate to move that if we're that first sub.

Yes, I'll, I'll speak to the sub, but just so you know. Thank you. Thank You. Um, SB 91 is, is is a bill I've been working on for a number of years. In fact, last year it, it, uh, passed the set at unanimously, passed both committees unanimously, and then ended up, uh, on the, the board that, uh, did get, uh, it didn't get, uh, uh, uh, voted on on the house board. So what it basically does is in 21, and this is a little bit complicated, so I'll try and explain it. In 21 of the 29 counties, DMV offices are run by the counties. There was an agreement signed 20 something years ago that to help possibly reimburse those counties for the funds or for the fees that they're using and the employees they're using to run DMV offices. So there's 21 counties that run their own DMV offices. There are the five largest counties plus three Uintah carbon and severe that the state, the DMV offices are run by the state. So they have all the employees or states, the building their state. So, um, and the, the the 20 plus year agreement, uh, the compensation is very inadequate right now. And so the 21 counties are not being compensated for collecting money. So what this bill would do is, first it's gonna raise the registration fee or user fee, a dollar 25. So currently it's $56 and 75 cents, it'll go up to $58. Now, currently the money that's collected is already distributed and goes into funds that are already set aside for transportation. And currently there, there, uh, there's different, different, there's departments of public safety and they collect almost $200 million is collected, but none of those fees go into DMV to help cover the costs, the costs of the five largest counties. And the other three smaller comes out of the general fund. So, um, many of the counties right now, many of 'em are spending an average of over a hundred thousand dollars of their own funds, uh, to try and continue to run their own DMV offices. And of course, the expense in the larger counties like Cash County has literally been close to a million dollars of shortfall trying to run the DMV office in the Cash County. Um, of course all stack, uh, taxpayers pay for state DMV offices, again, they serve, uh, eight counties. And, um, and as we're well aware, and, and I think we're have a few, uh, county commissioners, so I don't wanna take the thunder away from them. They're gonna be coming. What happens is we have a lot of online, um, uh, appointments that you need to, to have for DMV offices along the Wasatch Front. So a lot of people are using the other outside lane, uh, DM Vbu, uh, offices in Twila Box Elder and other places. Or what's happened is when people go recreating, uh, they realize they haven't registered their boats or a TV or something, then of course, um, the state parks aren't gonna let 'em on the, the lake. So they're lining up to go get it done. And, and we we're gonna have the, the Good Commissioner from Rich County, uh, commissioner Cox, we'll talk about that later. What happens in Rich County at their county courthouse every morning during the summer when people realize they haven't, uh, registered their, their boats. Uh, and so I'll, I won't talk. Like I said, there's been a lot of deficits. Um, again, I I, I ran the bill last year. Um, and what, I guess the other thing I need to mention is the first five thou $500,000 goes towards the building in Cash County. And what the sub does is we've changed, um, the way that we're funding this, uh, I just realized that I'm not using my updated talking points 'cause I've got four different sets of talking points now from last year and this year. So, uh, hopeful, hopefully what I said is accurate. The, the bottom line is the funding piece. And we've been working today with Ryan Hunter, Jonathan Ball Representative Val Peterson, representative Bridger Bollinger. Uh, and they came up with a funding piece where the money collected from the dollar 25 goes into a fund, and then each county is going to be reimbursed based on how many registrations they have in their county to try and make up the deficit they've had. And any remaining money that has not been distributed to these other counties, um, is gonna be put back in the general fund, which is where the fund's coming from for, uh, the other DMV offices. The last thing I wanted to do, Mr. Vice chair, was take funds away from a transportation fund or take money away from current DMV offices that are in the five largest counties, or the three other smaller counties. So, um, trying to, you know, to work on a funding piece for this. And, uh, you know, and I, I don't take lightly that I'm raising the, uh, a user fee, a dollar 25, but this, this came to light as a senator came to me just recently and said that he was at a, in a different county than where he lived. And the DMV office basically told him that you need to go back to your own county. And I, I, that's the problem that I'm trying to solve is we have counties with deficits that are getting frustrated because they have to run DMV offices. And so this would, would take care of a complicated issue that we've had for years. I think it's a, a, uh, reasonable, you know, user fee, a dollar 25, of course, that's across the state. There's around 3.5 million vehicle register per year. Um, somewhere around 4.4 million. Again, the first 500,000 goes towards a building in Cash County. Cash County will not be running the DMV office. This will be a state state building, along with the staff will be state also. I, I'm, I, I've been told that the money also, we can use some of this money hopefully to train, uh, to train the staffs in the other DMV offices. Also, I'm very concerned about security in our computer system. 'cause we know how much data is in that computer system throughout the state, and I wanna make sure that we're securing that data in some of these smaller county offices. So, um, boy, I think Mr. Chair, I'd like to turn some time over to Commissioner Valentine, if that's okay. Uh, I'd be happy to answer any questions. Like I said, it's complicated. I hope I've covered, um, I'm looking through some of these, my updated notes that I should have been using to see if I've missed anything. Um, again, uh, well list terms of time over Commissioner Valentine and I'll, I'll scour over my notes in the meantime. Okay, thank you.

Thank you Mr. Chairman. Uh, again, commissioner John Valentine, chairman of the Utah State Tax Commission. Uh, we have no opposition to the original bill, and we don't have any opposition to the new bill if it is adopted. I wanted to make that very clear on the record. I know there was some misunderstandings last session. There was some concerns. The tax commission had opposition to it. We do not. We can administer the bill either way. We've not taken a public position of support either way at this point, but we have no opposition. And I wanted that to be clear on the record. I can answer any other questions about how the, the bills, either the original or the substitute is structured.

We, you know what, it's, it's late on a Friday afternoon, vice chair. I, I think it's probably smarter for me to just conclude my presentation, so happy to answer any questions though.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I'm, so I'm trying to simplify this. Uh, so what we're doing is we're adding a fee for everybody that registers the vehicle to help fund the rural areas. Is that, Yeah. And it also funds those five buildings in the, the, in the big counties because otherwise there's no money and, and it, um, and there's so many residents and like I said, I'll have the county commissioners will come and tell you how many residents they serve.

Sure. So in reality, I think that, uh, these outside counties are also taking a lot of of pressure off of the DMV offices in the five counties. So I feel this also is going to help the five counties. Uh, and, and here again, this is going, the, the extra will be going into the general fund, and of course that's where the money comes, uh, for the other buildings. Right. So the general fund pays for the five And, and it will for Cash County also and the other three smaller counties. Okay.

Seems like, I don't know, maybe we should, I'm, I'm just thinking from structurally a structural point of view. If we have each have each DMV be funded based on how, like their role on the, or maybe we should do it as, as they register people, they get, they get funded based on that. I, I don't know. I'm just, Well, does that make sense?

Yeah. Um, but here again, so If somebody from another county registers their boat in Ridge County, okay.

They, they get to pull in that, that fee. Yet from there, That would be, I, I would like to maybe have the task commission try and talk to you about how to administer that.

That would be pretty difficult. Um, in my opinion, uh, to me, a dollar 25, I mean, I've always been, been that we lower it as low as possible and spread it over, you know, everybody knowing that, uh, that, that people can go anywhere they want and not have to worry about, and I've looked at this, believe me, what you're just saying there is let's just have people, um, what what I worry about is that the smaller counties are gonna say, well then, you know, you owe me 25 bucks 'cause you're from Salt Lake County and you know, extra for this. Or what happened to the good senator when they said, we're just not going to serve you anymore. Or you, you can go somewhere else. And I, I, uh, you know, you look at people, um, you know, they travel the state, you look at Iron County, uh, um, you know, people go down to, you know, snowbirds that go down south. Um, this is just to me, simplifies the whole system. And we're talking a dollar 25 user fee, which, you know, I, I, I don't take that lightly. Um, but this, in my opinion, curbs a very, very complicated issue. And like I said, the funding piece that they've, they've come to me today on, um, with some, a lot more intelligent people than I am on, uh, where it goes back in the general fund, I think will help, uh, with, as we need to expand DMV uh, offices along the Wasatch front. And I think a lot of those need help right now. But I did look at that funding piece. Obviously a user fee is what you're talking about. But in this kind of situation, I just felt this is a lot more simpler, uh, simpler to just do the dollar 25 across the board. Um, kinda like we do, it's the same, same, uh, with, with transit, I mean cash value, we pay, you know, a lot of money into transit and we don't really get much back. We, we have, we pay out a lot more than what we get back in cash, as many, many counties do. And obviously that goes towards the Wasatch front, but it's the same thing. There are a lot of fees that we pay statewide that goes to different parts of the state. And so I, I feel comfortable with this, with this, uh, if this, uh, um, type of structure.

Got it. Okay. Yeah.

But it's a good, it is a good, like I said, I, I looked at that.

Yeah. That was one thing we looked at. I think the Next 500 should build a DMV up in Huntsville. I think it's, I think it'll help us out up there, but, you know, thanks, Uh, represent The open

Thank you. So I see the 500,001 time. What, where is the o and m coming from for ongoing costs for the buildings

That'll come out? The general fund come Out of the general fund? Yeah. Just like all the other buildings, additional funds. Yeah. They're all the other DMV buildings throughout the, the five, and may I say Cash County is, is much larger now than Washington County was 20 something years ago when they decided to just let DMV, you know, run the office. I guarantee you, I surely wish 20 something years ago, they would've just had the state run. The DMV office in Cash County been a lot more simpler. But this, this has been a problem. Um, and the idea of, of resigning the agreements that was done 20 something years ago, no one is interested in resigning those agreements. And the reason they're doing this is, is for their citizens. So they don't have to, you know, and there's some people that still don't want to do it online. Um, uh, I mean, a lot of people need to go in transfer title, there's a lot of other things, or, or you're at Bear Lake or you're in Lake Powell, or you're in Moab, or you're down south near Iron County or somewhere. Um, this way you're, you know, that you can go to any DMV office and get taken care of with hopefully a smile and, and, uh, good service.

And so

My name's Bill Cox. I'm a commissioner in Rich County. Um, as we've talked to Senator Wilson about this for the last two or three years, um, as you know, bear Lake's become quite popular in, in several areas with, with boats and side-by-side and, and, uh, you know, RV vehicles. And what we found is, is that because of the lines, and, um, if you're pulling a boat and, and you realize that you gotta get registered, you can park in Randolph in front of the courthouse with your boat on and go in and register your vehicle, where you can't do that in the ones in the Wasatch front, I mean it, parking and everything else. And so we find people who either forget or they intentionally on, particularly on a Friday after noon, um, we'll have sometimes 6, 7, 8, uh, vehicles with boats and, and, and OHVs parked in front of the courthouse coming in to register their vehicles. And so, uh, one of the, one of the things we have learned and understood is that, um, because of the, the fact that you don't have to, it's not a line, you know, usually you can just walk in, you may have to wipe, wait just a, a minute or two, but not very much before you can come in and, and renew your registration or, or actually register new, new, uh, uh, vehicles. And, and so we've had to make sure that we have two people in that office on, on, particularly on Fridays just to accommodate. And it's, and it's kind of was a cycle there for a while during the summer with boats and no hvs. But it's become also, uh, one of the issues when they bring snowmobiles in. We have a lot of people now who like to snowmobile during the winter, and, and they'll, they'll come in and, and, you know, want to register their snowmobile on their way through, um, because it's, it's convenient and it's quick and they can just hook on and don't even have to unhook. And, and so it's, it's be kind of become a burden to us, to a certain degree. Um, but on the other hand, you know, we're more than willing to accommodate everybody. We, we can as they come through and wanna make sure everybody has a good experience there. And so we, you know, we've done the very best we can. Uh, it's, we have two, two part-time people in there that help. Um, and, you know, as, as time has gone on, we've had to increase wages, but the return for us has not, not increased with the fact that we've had to increase wages with, with benefits and those type of things, but no increase in, in the registration. So thank you.

Uh, Lee Perry, you are up. If you'll turn your camera on and unmute. All right. Uh, I'm, whoops. There we go. I'm Commissioner Lee Perry from Boxer County. I saw many of you earlier today and was dressed a little different, but had to get back up to Boxer County for some other issues. I am grateful for Senator Wilson running this, uh, from Boxer County's perspective, like Representative Cox or Commissioner Cox presented to you, we're losing about 125 to $150,000 a year to operate the DMV office in Boxer County. And we see roughly 25 to 30% of the people who walk into our DMV office are not local residents. And so we're getting people who, for whatever reason, choose not to wait in line with the state offices in Ogden. We'll drive north from Weaver County, Davis County, and even sometimes they get frustrated with other places and come over the hill, even from Cash County. So we get a group of folks, and like I said, we're seeing, we, we love to provide the service and we're willing to do that to benefit our citizens, but not at a huge loss to us as a county. And that's why we're grateful that I think that this bill is a step in the right direction. Um, but I could tell you as a commissioner, we wouldn't resign a contract under the current operation because we continue to lose a great deal of money to do this. We would just tell our residents, I guess you're gonna have to go get it done somewhere else. And we thought that when they Uintah the no plates being sold at the DMV and more online registration, we would see a decrease. But our office staffing is still the same, and we haven't been able to, we thought we might even be able to replace one of those and lower the number of staff we actually employ, but we're still seeing a similar number of people coming in and doing transactions to get their registration done. They either wanna be in person or they forget it. And there's a lot of other things like getting, when you get arrested for DUI or you get impounded, you have to take care of going in and getting these things taken care of. And, and our office provides that staff and that service. We even have some used car dealers who know that our, our place doesn't require a long line, and they will come up to our county to take care of some of their business up there because they don't wanna wait in line for down in, in Ogden or in Davis County or somewhere like that. So we would really appreciate the support on this bill. We think that this is a benefit to specialist 21 counties that are, we wanna provide the service, but we would ask the state to help get us reimbursed and get us back to a more level area. So, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Can I get, um, Mulligan, and you gimme the bill number so I can make the Motion? It is Senate Bill 91. Thank you. I'd like to move first substitute Senate bill, the first substitute to Senate Bill 91. Okay. That motion is in order. Would you like to speak to it? I, at the sponsor's request? Yes. Sh So, so Sorry. Do you want you, I I'm just double checking that you want the first substitute moved? Yes, yes. I'm sorry. Yes. I'll, uh, I'll defer to the sponsor.

Yes. Uh, and again, I mentioned that this, this is just the piece I covered, uh, just a, a different funding piece than what we had before. Uh, like I said, uh, Ryan Hunter, Jonathan Ball, uh, representative Val Peterson and Bridger Bollinger, uh, just had a different funding piece where the, the balance goes back in the general fund, uh, is, is what the change was with First Sub

Waive. Okay. So

That'd be great. Thank you. Mr. Chair. I'd like to make a motion to pass out favorable, uh, first, first substitute SB 91 Motor Vehicle Registration Services amendments.

Um, I really appreciate you taking the time. This is pretty nuanced and I didn't have a, a good understanding. So thank you, um, for continuing to work on this. And I do understand the frustration of bringing things good bills back, um, due to timing. So thanks for your work And to the bill sponsor. You know, I just appreciate it. One other thing that Commissioner Perry didn't talk about is, one thing that Box Elder also gets is they have, they have Spanish speaking, uh, people at DMV, and so they get a number of Spanish speaking that knows that they can go to Box Elder and get help. So that's another thing that's in, increased the volume there at Box Elder and appreciate them trying to do that. So,

Thanks again, vice Chair and chair.

Uh, I believe that most of you will. It may sound familiar to you. This is a bill that, uh, I ran last year and it died on the house, uh, board last day. Uh, basically what this bill does, uh, there's been a, there's been a situation, uh, for a number of years on how DMV uh, offices are operated. In 21 out of the 29 counties, residents and visitors alike are accessing DMV services through a county office, not a state office. The contract for counties to provide these services on behalf of the state has been amended, has not been amended. It's been over 20 years. Reimbursements have de decreased so much over the years while costs, especially as we all know, personnel costs have increased so quickly that running the office doesn't make sense financially for many of the counties currently, the five largest counties, Weber, Davis, Salt Lake, Utah, and Washington County, along with three smaller counties, you Uintah, carbon and severe our state run offices and have been for over 20 years. The counties running the DMV services are spending an average of a hundred thousand dollars of county funds that are not reimbursed by the state contract. Uh, and of course the expense is higher in larger counties and provide services more expensive in smaller counties. Um, what this bill does is this bill will raise the registration fee, which is currently $56 and 75 cents a dollar 25, it'll be $58, so a dollar 25. And that that amount of money will be going into a fund to help reimburse the counties, uh, while they're all having a deficit, uh, on their running their DMV offices. Now, currently the 56 75, all the funds have been going into a transportation fund around $198 million. So almost $200 million of the registration fee goes into transportation funds, public safety, and mostly transportation funds in udot. Um, there have not been funds to spend on the DMV administration costs. There's a number of reasons why, uh, residents of the five major counties have decided to go to the other smaller counties for, um, for services. We know that in Box Elder, they provide Spanish speaking staff and employees, uh, talking to Rich County, they have a lineup usually every morning during the summer as people remember or realize they don't have registration on their boats or their, uh, watercraft. And so they line up at the county or the, uh, courthouse every morning. Um, during the summer months. We know that they've been, uh, going to other counties like Illa County and others that don't, uh, don't, uh, have online, uh, um, uh, appointments. And so I know Iron County also has a number of Washington County residents that goes to Iron County. So basically what this does, uh, this will collect a dollar 25. And we, and then based on how many, um, transactions a county does, they'll be reimbursed. Currently there's about $4.1 million that will be collected. The first part of the, to be upfront is going to go 'cause Cash County has found it, uh, impossible for them to continue to do a DMV office that's completely funded by the county. So the first portion, a lot of portion of this first funding will be to establish a DMV office run by the state, uh, managed by the state in Cash County. Um, cash County currently is, is, is is larger than Washington County was when they became solely A DMV, uh, run office. Um, and the idea of being able to keep these DMV um, uh, basic county run DMV offices, uh, is going to save the state a lot of money. They're, they're still willing to do it, it's just that they just need a little bit of, of reimbursement for their, their deficits. I do have, uh, you know how that is, how that is, uh, is based on the reimbursement to the counties is based on the number of, of vehicles and the transactions that they've done in their counties. Um, I I believe that, again, like I said, it's gonna raise a dollar 25. It will go into a special fund to help with these counties. Uh, without Mr. Uh, president, I would be, I should conclude my presentation. Happy to answer your question. Thank

Okay. Thank you, Mr. President. I, I appreciate the, uh, support. Again, like I said, this was this past unanimously last year. I think it's a a, a good fix to a problem that just only gonna compound itself and get worse. And so I appreciate the support. And with that, uh, looking at, uh, motion that SB 91 be read for a third time. Thank you. And the question is, shall Senate bill 91 be read a third time? Roll call vote.

tax commission runs DMV, uh, buildings and their offices in eight different counties. What this bill will do, it'll add a dollar 25 to the registration fee. This money will go towards the other 21 counties in helping them, uh, run their county run DMV offices. So we'll be able to provide services for all the citizens of Utah and also keep the funds, uh, in those other eight, uh, counties without being, uh, disturbed. So, Mr. President, again, this, this bill I think will solve a very complicated issue, one that we've had for, uh, over 20 plus years. And, uh, with that, Mr. President, uh, will conclude my presentation.

P Thank you President. Uh, sponsor yield. I question is, uh, if, uh, this is the case and we are kind of spreading the load across all the counties, which has been the case, uh, is it, is it acceptable, doable that you can go to any DMB office in, uh, you don't have to go to the one that's in your county of, of residence? Senator Wilson?

Yes. Thank you for that question, Mr. President. Uh, yes, you'll be able to, as we've, as we talked about yesterday, there are a number of counties, uh, near the Wasatch Front that don't have appointments and they've seen a number of, of citizens also those like in, uh, rich County who forget to get the registration done on their boats or their, their other, um, uh, ATVs. Uh, that will be able to go to any DMV office throughout the state and provide funds or provide services. Also, these funds will also be used to, to for training and also for to upgrade, uh, computer systems as we know that fraud's a real problem these days. We wanna make sure and secure that data. Thank you for an that question.

I'll wave on the summation and a motion that SB 91 pass.

You Mr. President. I'd like to move to be recorded as an aye vote on Senate bill 69. I had to leave the chamber for just a moment, but it will not change the result of the vote.

You Mr. President.

Senator Plumb. Thank you Mr. President. Uh, this bill is a, a simple fix for some wording that was left out to make sure that we can waive fees for our youth and adolescents

I would. So there was a few changes in, uh, distribution formula. This bill is actually funded now in the budget. So after we adopt the fifth sub, it will turn green.

I would, I just want to give, uh, colleagues a little bit of time to look at it.

I would. So there was a few changes in, uh, distribution formula. This bill is actually funded now in the budget. So after we adopt the fifth sub, it will turn green.

I would. So there was a typo in the bill. Um, it just struck out, uh, section three E and, uh, changed it to section three, was all the amendment does.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. So in Utah, 21 of the 29 counties, residents and visitors alike are accessing DMV services through a county office and not a state office. So Cash County's one example of this. So for years, voters in these counties have subsidized state processes and residents of other counties who visit these offices because the existing 20 plus year old contracts do not provide adequate reimbursement due to inflation and staff costs and changes to how DMV systems like on spot and online registrations operate. So registration fees are distributed to a number of, of funds including taxing entities because we charge fees in lieu of property taxes, the transportation fund, the Department of Public Safety, and a little bit to the tax commission for electronic payments. So this bill addresses that and does a couple of things. So the fifth substitute, as you can see, when we adopted that, it became a bill that was already funded. This bill was run last year to address this issue. It didn't quite make it through the complete process, but the fifth sub, what it does is to generate support for local government, uh, that are operated by DMVs, or excuse me, operate DMVs in smaller and more rural communities across the state. It does this with an increase to the, the motor vehicle registration fee, uh, that was contained in the previous versions of this bill. Uh, 50 cents to 25 cents rather than the, the 1 25, a dollar 25 and a dollar. So that's one of the changes. And then instead of raising registration fees for everyone, everybody in the state, this sub raises the voluntary contribution on black license plates from 25 to 50. And that's a bit more than one might pay for a University Utah license plate, uh, which is a $40 a year or a realtor license plate, which is $30 a year. But these plates are immensely popular, as you've probably seen around the state. So that's what the bill does. I'm, I'm happy to answer any questions, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will this sponsor yield to a question? Representative Bolinder, will you yield?

Sure. Yes, representative.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. I am just wanting to double check on what you just said. So this is not a mandatory, the black license plates who has been very, very successful, uh, they won't be increased, but it'll be voluntary.

Yeah. Thank you for the question, Mr. Speaker. So the black license plates are, are voluntary, is, is what I'm saying.

Okay. May I follow up? Mr. Speaker

Sure. Yes, representative.

Thank you. So I just wanna make sure, so I have a buck license plate look great with my car, and if I re-register my car, does that mean that I can voluntarily check a box to give an additional $25, but my registration fee doesn't go up? And that's voluntary.

Thank you for the question, Mr. Speaker. So my understanding of it is just when you register the, the first time, uh, if you already have your black license plate, I don't think that it raises it on when you re-register your car.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker with the sponsor yield to a question. Representative Bollinger, will you yield?

Yes. Yes, representative.

Thank you. The, the black license plate, um, fee is increasing. Excuse me? Is that money tied to something specific or is that State General just increasing that because of its popularity?

Yeah, it is tied to something. So, um, this, there's a couple of things. It does that probably the, the, the biggest one, the most significant change on this is the 2034 Olympics venues. This isn't funding the Olympics. Uh, some of the funding is going towards the Olympic venue renovations.

Okay. So, uh, Mr. Speaker, is there any connection between the 21 counties that are, uh, receiving some additional funding where they weren't before and the license plate? Or is it just, uh, same kinda concept in the bill and they're just included together?

No, this will be distributed to, uh, those counties to operate their DMVs as well From the black license plate.

Uh, revenue. Correct. Okay. Thank you.

Yeah. Basically the bill's pretty little the same. We, we did add a little bit of increase for the black license plate, which the funding revenue's gonna go to Cultural and Community Engagement Foundation, the Olympic and Paralympic venues. That's pretty well we just altered some of the revenue sources.

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