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Fee hike sparks Capitol battle
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By Bob Watson
bwatson@newstribune.com Lawmakers balk as fee for driver's license and vehicle records jumps from $1.25 to $7
An insurance industry spokes-man told some lawmakers Tuesday that, unless the Revenue Department changes its new fees for getting copies of driver's license and motor vehicle records, Missourians soon will face a $15 million to $20 million statewide insurance premiums increase.
And one lawmaker told Revenue Director Omar Davis the new fees must be reduced, or he'll get bills passed to block them -- even in the General Assembly session's final days.
The debate involves the department's May 1 increase in its charges for releasing information in driver's license and motor vehicle records, to $7 for an individual record and $28 million for a copy of all 4 million records in the department's system.
Until last week, it cost $1.25 to get copies of individual records, and less than $2,100 to get the state's entire driver's license database.
Tim Sowton, a lobbyist for R.L. Polk -- the parent company of Columbia-based CarFax, an online used-car-history database -- said the Revenue Department's new policy is a 300,000-percent fee increase.
"The (federal) Driver's Privacy Protection Act ... require(s) that the (department) make the records available to comply with certain federal statutes (including) the federal recall statute," he said. "You cannot carry out recalls one record at a time ... you need the entire database to find all the cars."
Rep. Shannon Cooper, R-Clinton, told Davis near the end of a nearly two-hour meeting of the Legislature's Joint Committee on Tax Policy: "I assure you that (we) can pass something that will stop you. ... You're going to put these people out of business."
Cooper told reporters the department's fee increase "appears to be very excessive."
Davis reluctantly testified Tuesday before the committee, wondering in a memo to Chairman Brad Lager, R-Maryville, how wise it was for lawmakers to take public testimony, when Davis expects opponents will sue the department over the fee increase.
"There's no tax component to this at all," he told the committee. "We're going to increase the price of the records, to upgrade some internal equipment and systems that we have, where we don't have any appropriations from the General Assembly, as far as general revenue, to do."
Davis said the charges imposed until last week were "woefully inadequate to supplement what we needed to do" in upgrading 35-year-old computers.
Jean Maneke, a Kansas City attorney representing the Missouri Press Association, said the department's new fee violates the state's "Sunshine" laws. But Davis said the records aren't covered by that law.
"These aren't records that any of your constituents buy on a regular basis," Davis said. "These records are purchased by (out-of-state) companies -- insurance companies, for the most part."
But Larry Case, lobbyist for the Jefferson City-based Missouri Association of Independent Agents, told lawmakers: "Insurance agents have to purchase these things every time they run a record."
Sarah Patrick, of Explore Information Services, said the records help companies set rates "so that good drivers are not subsidizing the premiums of the bad drivers or the high-risk drivers."
Davis told reporters after Tuesday's hearing: "There's no middle ground. ...
"I think it's an embarrassment that anybody could come in here ... and say the department is doing something wrong. We're just trying to protect the citizens' of Missouri's (personal) information."
On the Net:
Revenue Department: http://www.dor.mo.gov
Legislature: http://www.moga.mo.gov
Editor's note: This News Tribune story, published in the newspaper on May 7, 2008, replaces the Associated Press version originally posted here on May 7.
And one lawmaker told Revenue Director Omar Davis the new fees must be reduced, or he'll get bills passed to block them -- even in the General Assembly session's final days.
The debate involves the department's May 1 increase in its charges for releasing information in driver's license and motor vehicle records, to $7 for an individual record and $28 million for a copy of all 4 million records in the department's system.
Until last week, it cost $1.25 to get copies of individual records, and less than $2,100 to get the state's entire driver's license database.
Tim Sowton, a lobbyist for R.L. Polk -- the parent company of Columbia-based CarFax, an online used-car-history database -- said the Revenue Department's new policy is a 300,000-percent fee increase.
"The (federal) Driver's Privacy Protection Act ... require(s) that the (department) make the records available to comply with certain federal statutes (including) the federal recall statute," he said. "You cannot carry out recalls one record at a time ... you need the entire database to find all the cars."
Rep. Shannon Cooper, R-Clinton, told Davis near the end of a nearly two-hour meeting of the Legislature's Joint Committee on Tax Policy: "I assure you that (we) can pass something that will stop you. ... You're going to put these people out of business."
Cooper told reporters the department's fee increase "appears to be very excessive."
Davis reluctantly testified Tuesday before the committee, wondering in a memo to Chairman Brad Lager, R-Maryville, how wise it was for lawmakers to take public testimony, when Davis expects opponents will sue the department over the fee increase.
"There's no tax component to this at all," he told the committee. "We're going to increase the price of the records, to upgrade some internal equipment and systems that we have, where we don't have any appropriations from the General Assembly, as far as general revenue, to do."
Davis said the charges imposed until last week were "woefully inadequate to supplement what we needed to do" in upgrading 35-year-old computers.
Jean Maneke, a Kansas City attorney representing the Missouri Press Association, said the department's new fee violates the state's "Sunshine" laws. But Davis said the records aren't covered by that law.
"These aren't records that any of your constituents buy on a regular basis," Davis said. "These records are purchased by (out-of-state) companies -- insurance companies, for the most part."
But Larry Case, lobbyist for the Jefferson City-based Missouri Association of Independent Agents, told lawmakers: "Insurance agents have to purchase these things every time they run a record."
Sarah Patrick, of Explore Information Services, said the records help companies set rates "so that good drivers are not subsidizing the premiums of the bad drivers or the high-risk drivers."
Davis told reporters after Tuesday's hearing: "There's no middle ground. ...
"I think it's an embarrassment that anybody could come in here ... and say the department is doing something wrong. We're just trying to protect the citizens' of Missouri's (personal) information."
On the Net:
Revenue Department: http://www.dor.mo.gov
Legislature: http://www.moga.mo.gov
Editor's note: This News Tribune story, published in the newspaper on May 7, 2008, replaces the Associated Press version originally posted here on May 7.
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