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Committee advances bill allowing state police to reallocate part of auto-auction fees
Summary
House Bill 1988 would let the Arkansas State Police transfer up to half of accumulated administrative fees from the statewide auto-auction program into the agency's general operations fund; sponsors said roughly $900,000 has accumulated under the current statutory restriction.
Joan Shipley, chief of staff for the Department of Public Safety, told the committee that prior legislation assigned responsibility for auto auctions to the state police and created an administrative fee that, by law, must be used only to administer the program. Shipley said that over time the program has accumulated approximately $900,000 that the State Police cannot use under current statute. "They are unable to use that money because of the language in the legislation," Shipley said.
Department leaders asked that at least half of the accumulated balance be transferred to the state police general operations fund, giving the agency flexibility to apply the revenue to needs such as updated tasers. "That will give them the flexibility to be able to use that money where it is needed instead of having to come back to this General Assembly and ask for more money," Shipley said. Secretary Mike Hager, director of the State Police, attended and was introduced to the committee.
Representative Richmond moved the do-pass motion; the committee approved the bill by voice vote. The transcript does not show a roll-call vote tally. No opponents spoke during the hearing. Shipley said she did not know whether Senator Payton had reviewed the measure. The bill's text and the specific statutory citation for the original fee were not included in the transcript.
