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F I S C A L I M P A C T R E P O R T

SPONSOR Anderson

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

2/20/07

HB 1150/aHTPWC

SHORT TITLE State Defense Force License Plates

SB

ANALYST Earnest

REVENUE (dollars in thousands)

Estimated Revenue

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY07

FY08

FY09

$0.1*

$0.1* Recurring State Road Fund

$0.1*

$0.1* Recurring

Local

Governments

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Revenue Decreases)

*Indeterminate but positive revenue impact; see fiscal implications section

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

TRD

Responses Received From

Taxation and Revenue Department (TRD)

Department of Military Affairs

SUMMARY

Synopsis of HTPWC Amendment

The House Transportation and Public Works Committee (HTPWC) amendment changes the

effective date of the legislation to July 1, 2008. This change would allow TRD to make the

system upgrades needed to implement the new plate.

Synopsis of Original Bill

House Bill 1150 would require the Motor Vehicle Division (MVD) to issue a specialized plate

for members or retirees of the State Defense Force. The fee for the plate is $25. Of this fee, $10

would be retained by the department to defray costs of producing the plate and the remaining $15

House Bill 1150/aHTPWC – Page

2

would be distributed to the State Road Fund and local governments. The State Defense Force, as

defined in Section 20-5-1 NMSA 1978, refers to the elements of the militia in the Department of

Military Affairs, including the former NM state guard.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

TRD cannot precisely estimate the number of State Defense Force special plates that may be

requested. Approximately 25,000 special plates are currently issued under 22 different kinds.

The most common are the veterans of various armed services (9,269 total) and collegiate plates

(8,957 total), but several of the special plates have been issued in much smaller quantities.

The additional $15 per plate fee would be appropriated to the State Road Fund (74.65 percent)

and to local governments (25.35 percent).

ADMINISTRATIVE IMPLICATIONS

TRD indicates that, since the creation of several special registration plates over the past few

years, the revenue accounting system of the Motor Vehicle Division has run out of revenue codes

to implement additional special registration plates. All new special registration plates are

assigned a revenue code and financial programming so the plate can be programmed into the

system and the associated funds distributed appropriately. Without any revenue codes available,

no additional special registration plates can be implemented into the existing system. In order to

accommodate new special registration plates, a re-write of the revenue accounting system will

need to occur.

TECHNICAL ISSUES

TRD recommends a July 1, 2008, effective date for this and any other special registration plate

proposals in order to complete the necessary system changes.

BE/mt