CHENANGO COUNTY – County leaders are making a case to increase the county’s share of revenue that’s collected through the local Department of Motor Vehicles.
A resolution calling for an increase in the share of revenue that all counties retain for providing state DMV services was passed by the Chenango County Board of Supervisors last month, putting pressure on state legislatures to restructure the way DMV collections are divvied between state and local entities.
Currently, New York State takes 87.3 percent of all fines, fees and penalties collected from the Chenango County DMV. The remaining 21.7 percent is retained by the county.
The problem is that the county hasn’t seen an increase in DMV revenues in the past 17 years, even though the workload of the local DMV office has escelated and more stress has been put on the county to stay under the tax cap, according to county officials.
The County Board of Supervisors argues that increasing the county’s revenue sharing rate may go a long way in providing local government services and limiting the property tax burden on homeowners. It would also help pay the local DMV a more fair rate for the work that’s performed.
“With more emphasis on technology and submitting things online, which I don’t think anybody is debating is wrong, there’s more work that we have to perform in our department,” explained County Clerk Mary Weidman. “What it comes down to is that we’re not getting paid for the work we’re doing ... What we’re looking to do is increase (the county’s) retention rate before sending money to the state.”
Efforts to increase revenue sharing have been made by many of the 52 New York counties that are mandated to operate a local Department of Moter Vehicles. In 2015, Republican Senator Patty Ritchie (48th Senate District) introduced a bill that relates to increasing the retention percentage for certain motor vehicle service fees from the current 12.7 percent to 25 percent. The bill was passed by the State Senate in 2015, but died in the Assembly earlier this year. An amended version is currently making its way through the proper committees.
The recent resolution passed by the County Board of Supervisors states that there’s a “clear inequity present” when the county foots administrative costs of state mandated DMV services while the state takes a lion’s share of generated revenue.
“Increasing [revenue rates] for the county would make us more whole for the work that we’re doing, especially with the transition to more electronic processing,” said Weidman.
A copy of the county’s resolution has been forwarded to the office of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, as well as State senators James Seward and Fredrick Akshar, and assemblyman Clifford Crouch and Gary Finch. Copies were also sent to other New York counties and the New York State Association of Counties.