**Republican-backed Auto Tag Fee Hikes Squeeze Florida Charities**
Hollis, Mark
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 16, 2010
CONTACT: Mark Hollis
*In
Case You Missed It*
Republican-backed
Auto Tag Fee Hikes
Squeeze Florida Charities
Ø
Fee hikes
sponsored by Florida House and Senate Republican legislators are crimping the
budgets of charities.
Ø Important social, cultural and environmental programs
suffer.
Ø Florida House Democrats opposed the fee hikes in 2009.
Ø House Bill 99, sponsored by Rep. Ron Saunders (D-Key West) and numerous Florida House Democratic Caucus members would decrease auto tag fees and registration costs in 2010.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/os-auto-tags-drop-20100316,0,3554035,full.story
By Steven Cole Smith, Orlando Sentinel Automotive Editor
The
Legislature's move to raise fees on specialty auto-license plates last year has
sent sales into a deep nose-dive that's carving into the budgets of charities
dependent on tag revenues for funding.
Sales of the 114 varieties of tags, which honor everything from NASA to
manatees, have plummeted by 64 percent compared with last year, officials say.
That's difficult news for the Maitland-based Florida Wildflower Foundation,
which relies on the Florida Wildflower tag as its sole source of income. The
plate provided about $260,000 in donations annually before the fee increase,
said Lisa Roberts, executive director of the group.
Sales were holding their own in the recession, she said. But because of the fee
increase, it's predicting a shortfall of $60,000 to $100,000 this year.
"Donations from the specialty-plate program support important social,
cultural and environmental programs," Roberts said. "But that work
surely can't continue on the same scale."
Almost all of the specialty tags have seen a dramatic decrease in sales this
year, ranging from the top-rated University of Florida tag, which has been
averaging $2 million a year from its plate, to tags that benefit manatee,
panther, sea turtle and wild dolphin conservation, as well as more traditional
charities, such as breast cancer research and highlighting the need for organ
donation.
Total sales of specialty tags statewide dropped from 52,798 in the first two
months of 2009, to 18,841 in January and February this year.
The Florida Wildflower Foundation ranked 33rd of the 114 tags sold in 2009.
Motorists bought 564 wildflower tags in the first two months of 2009, but this
year, that has dropped to 177. Organizations get as much as $25 per tag, but
the Florida Wildflower Foundation gets $15.
The Save The Manatee tag, which always ranks in the top 10, benefits the Save
The Manatee Trust Fund, based in St. Petersburg. Sales of new tags the first
two months of 2009 were 1,831, and at $25 per tag, the Fund received $45,775. The
first two months of this year, sales were just 376, generating $8,400.
Hoping to trim the state's budget shortfall, legislators last September more
than doubled the fee to buy specialty plates from $14 to $33, and the renewal
fee from $2 to $5.
Roberts, and executives with other organizations, figure the increase was just
too much for many Floridians, especially coupled with the cost to register a
new car jumping from $100 to $225 last year.
While many for-profit organizations offer specialty tags, the funds generated
must go to a charitable cause. Money generated by the NASCAR tag, for instance,
goes to the Florida Sports Foundation and to the NASCAR Foundation's designated
charities.
Florida essentially invented the specialty tag. The first debuted on Jan. 1,
1987, in remembrance of the Challenger space shuttle disaster and to raise
money for a memorial. By October of that year, nine state universities had
their own plates, to raise money for scholarships.
Specialty plates represent nearly 9 percent of the tags on personal vehicles in
the state, and according to a Florida Senate report, have generated nearly $436
million in income for charities since the program began. For fiscal year 2009,
which ended in June, sales were more than $37 million.
To be considered for a specialty plate, an organization must hire an
independent company to conduct a survey on Florida registered-vehicle owners,
post an application fee of $60,000, create a marketing plan, and provide
financial analyses and the design of the license plate.
Figuring there are enough specialty plates for now, the Legislature has said
that no new plates will be issued until after July 1, 2011.
Michael Towner, a Boca Raton marketing consultant to nonprofit organizations
who has helped create specialty plates in seven states, said there are four
bills before the Legislature that peripherally address the problem, but none of
them would specifically roll back fees, and none has even gone through
committee hearings.
"We've written language for a bill that would essentially just go back to
where we were on Sept. 1," he said, but so far, no state senator or
representative has stepped forward to introduce it.
Towner predicted the slowdown in specialty-plate purchases could cost charities
$57 million over the next 10 years if the trend continues.
Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, however, is a co-sponsor of legislation (SB 2036)
that would roll back some of the fees approved by lawmakers last spring, but
the bill doesn't specifically address specialty tags. He said the shortfall
wasn't surprising.
"I didn't study economics in college, but I walked by the classroom
once," Gaetz recently told the News Service of Florida. "When you
raise the price on a discretionary purchase in the middle of a recession, you're
going to see demand for it drop."
Sentinel Automotive Editor Steven Cole Smith can be reached at scs...@orlandosentinel.com or
407-420-5699.
###
Mark Hollis
Communications Director
Democratic Office
Florida House of Representatives