Senate Transportation reviews DMV bill draft; JFO estimates roughly $775,000 annual hit to Transportation Fund

The Senate Transportation Committee reviewed a draft DMV miscellaneous bill (referred to in the hearing as draft 2.2 and later 3.1) and heard a Joint Fiscal Office summary that the proposal could reduce Transportation Fund revenue by roughly $775,000 per year.

The fiscal estimate — presented to the committee by a Joint Fiscal Office analyst, Logan — said the projected revenue loss is driven mostly by two items: a proposed online replacement registration certificate waiver (section 5) and a reduced-fee proposal for Vermonters receiving Supplemental Security Income or Social Security Disability Insurance (section 8). "This call estimate is for the 2.2 draft," Logan told the panel, and the analysis assumed a worst-case utilization pattern in which all eligible transactions take the new, lower-cost path.

Why it matters: committee members said the proposed reductions matter to the Transportation Fund budget and urged staff to produce options that would make the package revenue-neutral or close to it. Several senators pressed whether modest fees (for example, a $10 fee instead of full waiver) or splitting reductions in half would strike a balance between the consumer convenience goals of the bill and the fund shortfall.

Key items and fiscal estimates described at the hearing

- Replacement registration certificates (section 5): Under current statute the replacement registration fee is $20 (transcript references the statutory provision the presenter cited). JFO counted 17,519 replacement/correction requests in 2024 and, because DMV cannot reliably separate corrective requests (which would still incur a fee) from replacement-only requests, JFO modeled a conservative scenario. That scenario produced an estimated annual revenue reduction of about $350,000 if online replacements are provided at no charge.

- EV infrastructure fee exemption (section 6): The draft would exempt state- and municipal-owned electric vehicles and volunteer emergency vehicles (including volunteer fire departments and ambulance services) from the EV infrastructure fee enacted…