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: Grits for Breakfast

Department of "Public Safety" or "Collections"?

According to a reader who attended, at yesterday's meeting of the Public Safety Commission there was a lengthy discussion, prompted by Commissioner Carin Barth, of the Orwellian-named "Driver Responsibility" program. Rather than criticize the draconian, regressive nature of the fee, though, which was created during the 2003 budget crisis expressly as an alternative to property tax hikes, Commissioner Barth wanted to know why there was only a 30% collection rate. (For the current fiscal year, the board was told, DPS has collected $170 million.)That's easy enough: This is an administrative fee piled on top of the already-steep criminal penalties for a no-insurance ticket or DWI stop. It's quite high and stretches out over three years, in some cases at a cost of $1,000 per year or more...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on June 19, 2009 (boomark / email).