County treasurers press committee to reallocate registration and title fees as KDOT warns of $16 million highway-fund gap

County treasurers from across Kansas urged the Senate Transportation Committee to approve Senate Bill 119, a proposal to reallocate existing motor-vehicle fees to provide more funding for county tag-and-title offices. Treasurers told senators that decades-old statutory allocations no longer cover the cost of running modern motor-vehicle operations and that counties are increasingly using property-tax dollars to fill the gap.

Brandy Bailey, Sedgwick County treasurer, said Sedgwick relied on county property taxes to subsidize tag operations by about $200,000 three years ago, $374,000 in 2023, $655,000 last year and a projected $960,000 in 2025. Bailey said her office handles roughly 415,000 registration renewals and 9,000 title transactions annually and employs 79 people across two tag offices; she told the committee a reallocation failure would force cuts of about 25 staffers and could close an entire office. “Please please, pass this out favorably so that way we can try to, help the county treasures in, going forward,” Bailey said.

Riley County Treasurer Shiloh Hager, legislative chair for the Kansas County Treasurer’s Association, said the 75-cent registration allowance and $2 title allocation in current statute have not kept pace with costs and that counties statewide are covering an estimated $13 million annually with property taxes. Hager said counties have absorbed additional responsibilities—title approving, commercial and IRP vehicle processing and contracting with third-party vendors—after changes to the state motor-vehicle system.

Saline County Treasurer James Du Bois said his office closed a satellite location because rent and operating costs rose; he said long lines and service disruptions followed. Jay Hall, deputy director and general counsel for the Kansas Association of Counties, framed the issue as one of customer service: staffing reductions, he said, translate directly into multi-hour waits for constituents.

Joel Skelly, director of policy for the Kansas Department of Transportation, said KDOT is neutral on the bill but warned the proposed reallocation would reduce deposits to the state highway fund by about $16 million if implemented as described. “We want to make sure that the committee is aware of that,” Skelly said, urging the panel to consider ways to keep the highway fund whole if the committee favors the treasurers’ request.

Michael White, executive director of the Kansas Contractors Association, also urged the committee to protect the highway fund, noting ordinary transfers out of the highway fund have grown and that losing $16 million annually would have multi-year implications for construction projects. He suggested the committee consider fee increases or other funding offsets if it wants to preserve highway construction funding while helping treasurers.

Treasurers and association representatives described several options discussed in testimony: reallocating existing fees (SB119 would raise the county share of the registration/"license application" allocation from $0.75 to $5.75 and the title allocation from $2 to $3.50), pursuing a modest statewide fee increase, expanding appointment systems and encouraging online renewals (testimony referred to the online renewal option as “ICANN”/“iKan”), and identifying other transfers or budget offsets to keep KDOT revenue steady. Dean Williams, vehicle coordinator for the Division of Vehicles, told the committee staff would provide detailed revenue and allocation numbers to the committee after the hearing.

The committee opened and heard testimony on SB119 and received a long list of written proponents; no committee vote was taken. The record shows the Department of Transportation and industry groups are willing to work with treasurers and the committee to find a solution that supports county operations while addressing the highway-fund shortfall.