Panel reviews cleanup bill to limit personalized plates to one per vehicle, update county decal rules and digital fulfillment

The Senate Transportation Committee took testimony on House Bill 2289, a Department of Revenue cleanup measure that would change several provisions related to license-plate issuance and production.

Under the bill, personalized license plates would be issued as a single plate per vehicle rather than two, a change the department said reflects modern production and law-enforcement needs. The bill also removes a requirement that an application for a personalized plate be submitted 60 days before registration renewal and removes a separate statutory requirement to provide county-designation decals on plates because new digitally produced plates now include county information. Finally, the bill clarifies that plates ordered digitally may be shipped directly to customers.

Adam, a committee staff member, introduced the bill and said it would “limit this to 1 plate to make it essentially conform with all with the other plates, for individuals.” He described the measure as requested by the Department of Revenue to modify provisions related to issuance and production of license plates.

Zach Denny of the Kansas Department of Revenue, a proponent, described the bill as “a cleanup bill” and showed examples to the committee demonstrating that county designations are digitally printed on modern plates, removing the need for a separate decal. “Now as you can see on this license plate, the county decal is digitally printed on there. So that is no longer required,” Denny said. He added the division “has not issued 2 personalized license plates for a single vehicle in, like, 20 years” and said the prior practice created law-enforcement problems when a second plate was installed on a different vehicle.

Committee members asked for clarification about whether particular specialty plates would still show county or designation information; staff and the department said the statute controlling printed county or designation information remains in effect for new plates and that the bill removes antiquated language and lead-time requirements that no longer match digital production methods.

The committee heard proponents and closed the hearing on HB 2289 with no vote recorded at the session.