March 29, 2024

Plate Tectonics

Revenue to non-profits from sales of specialty plates is down a bit, but is last year's fee increase really to blame?

Amy Keller | 8/1/2010
Florida's specialty license plates
The price of Florida’s 114 different specialty license plates increased last year. [Photo: Mark Wemple]

In 2009, facing a $3-billion hole in the budget, the Legislature and state agencies, including the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, began looking for ways to cut costs and generate more revenue. Lawmakers ultimately decided to make up for some of some of the shortfall by allowing the DMV to charge Florida motorists more for their driver’s license renewals, annual vehicle registration fees, license tags and titles. Increasing fees, lawmakers decided, was more palatable than raising taxes. It was also overdue — the state hadn’t raised the cost of obtaining or renewing a driver’s license for 20 years, and title fees and most motor vehicle registration fees had remained the same for 24 and 26 years, respectively.

The fee increases included the state’s 114 specialty plates: Beginning in September 2009, motorists with plates emblazoned with the names of environmental causes, sports teams, state universities and the like had to pay $3 more than before to renew their plate. Those who’d never had a specialty plate but wanted one and those whose specialty plates had reached the end of their lifespan and needed a new metal plate faced a $28 “new issuance” fee — a big bump from the previous $12 charge. (All those with specialty plates continued to pay an additional $15 to $25 charitable contribution that goes to the non-profit sponsoring the plate.)

In the early part of 2010, in the wake of the fee increases, a number of Florida charities saw their receipts from specialty plate sales decline. The DMV’s sales figures, meanwhile, reflected a 64% decline in what it categorized as “new issuances” of specialty plates. Some charities seized on the fee hikes for “new” plates as the reason. They concluded, and several newspapers in the state reported, that the fee hikes were killing sales of new specialty plates — and were to blame for the revenue decline.

The reality, however, is a bit more complicated. In the first place, most non-profits didn’t get hammered. Some non-profit groups saw increases during the first four months of 2010 compared to the same period in 2009, including Conserve Wildlife, which saw its plate revenue increase from $129,510 to $183,665. Others saw declines: End Breast Cancer’s revenue during the first four months of 2010 fell by nearly 8% to $175,925 [“Specialty Plate Revenue”].

Overall, comparing the first four months of 2010 to the same period last year, revenue to non-profits fell from $11.59 million to $11.03 million. The $560,059 drop represents a less than 5% decline.


Another bureaucratic change that occurred along with the fee increases makes it unclear how much those increases are to blame. At the same time it began charging the higher fees, the DMV decided to cut costs by extending the lifespan of a vehicle’s metal license plate from six to 10 years. The move made good fiscal sense, says agency legislative affairs director Steven Fielder, because “it’s cheaper for us to buy a little yellow sticker than to make a new (metal) plate.”

The move, which is saving the agency $4 million a year, muddied the agency’s statistics. The motorists whose six-year plate terms were up no longer had to buy a new plate. They kept their old specialty plates and renewed them — but those renewals didn’t show up in the agency’s “new issuances” category, making it appear as if fewer people were buying new specialty plates.

Further muddying the statistical waters was the fact that the state had also begun allowing motorists to purchase biennial registrations. Because of that change, says DMV spokesman David Westberry, the number of renewals may appear lower in any given month because earlier registrations may have been for a two-year period, when in fact the money is still flowing.

Sales of specialty tags aren’t off by that much, Westberry says, if you just follow the money and don’t get hung up on how the sales transactions are tallied. “Our statistics show just a very minor downturn, consistent with the overall economic downturn,” he says. “I don’t believe that the fee increase that the Legislature passed has had a significant impact on their ability to market and sell their plates,” he says. “It is down some, granted. Is the sky falling? I don’t think so. I don’t sense that. I don’t believe that. I don’t think our numbers demonstrate that.”

Numbers notwithstanding, Michael Towner, a Boca Raton marketing consultant who heads up the Specialty License Plate Coalition, remains convinced that fees, not the economy, are depressing plate sales. A 5% decline may not seem like much, he says, but can amount to a big blow to non-profits that depend on specialty plate sales for a portion of their operating revenue. “It is a pity DMV staff have such a warped sense of economics,” Towner says.

DMV officials hosted a “workshop” for charities in July to help sort through the specialty plate controversy, but Towner says he is planning to head back to Tallahassee next year and ask lawmakers to “amortize” the $28 new plate fee over the 10-year life cycle of the plate to ease the pressure on consumers and, he hopes, increase plate sales.

Sen. Mike Fasano
Sen. Mike Fasano sponsored the fee hike bill but would now like to see it rescinded.
Sen. Mike Fasano (R-New Port Richey), chairman of the Transportation and Economic Development Appropriations Committee and sponsor of the fee hike bill, says he believes that both the fee hikes and poor economy have likely meant fewer people are buying a specialty license plate.

Fasano would now like to see the fee hikes rescinded, but he was unsuccessful in his efforts this year to persuade the Legislature to pass a bill that would have lowered the state’s vehicle registration fees. He says he’ll continue to fight for changes in the next session but suggests in the interim that any affected charities consider reducing their administrative costs to cope with revenue shortfalls.

Tags: Politics & Law

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