While the Tennessee General Assembly held most of next year’s state budget in limbo today, one bill, raising more money from drivers’ licenses, advanced.
Representative Bill Harmon chairs the House Transportation Committee. So he got to sponsor a “revenue enhancer,” one of those unpopular bills that raises the fee a citizen pays for a service. If passed, the length of time between driver’s license renewals would go from five to eight years. Harmon says cost of a renewal would go up $16.
“We are still going to be one of the cheapest driver’s license purchases in surrounding states.”
Revenue from the measure would be used to beef up driver’s license stations and to shore up other Department of Safety programs. Harmon says it would keep Highway Patrol officers on the road in 13 counties.
The change is in Governor Phil Bredesen’s original budget and has been criticized by Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey.
The bill is up in the House Finance Committee next Tuesday.
The upper chamber has been slower to act. The Senate version is stuck in the Senate Transportation Committee.
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The bill is HB 3780 Harmon/SB 3912 Kyle.
The bill would have the effect of capturing the renewal fees for eight-year licenses in only five years. It would bring in $21 million next fiscal year, ranging up to $41 million in 2018-19 before tapering off, according to this analysis from the legislative Fiscal Review Committee.
The uses that the money is to be put to is spelled out in the budget, Harmon says.
“It is going to help us .. or prevent us, from closing five driver’s license stations, and equip them with some new, faster equipment, computers, to be able to issue licenses quicker, to get folks out of those lines, if possible, as well as helping maintain highway patrolmen in 13 small counties in Tennessee.”
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