900,000 license plates on road to somewhere

Vehicle tags aren't lost, but they sure aren't found, either

By John Sanko, News Capitol Bureau

The Colorado Department of Revenue says it's doing a better job of keeping track of license plates.

Good thing, say legislative budget writers, who were a little miffed Monday to learn that the agency had asked county clerks for help in locating 900,000 plates.

The plates were never really lost, lawmakers were assured. It's just that no one was absolutely certain where they all were.

They still don't.

The old system being used was never designed for tracking plates, and it was running nine months behind in the process, legislators learned.

"I'm not going to sugarcoat it -- it's not pretty," said Aurora Ruiz-Hernandez, director of the department's motor vehicle group. "Basically, we used a system or attempted to use a system that was never viable and never gave us a system to track plates.

"It (the old system) was off the shelf and we tried to make it functional. We finally realized it was a sinking ship."

The good news, Ruiz-Hernandez told the legislative Joint Budget Committee, is that a good tracking system went into effect July 1. The bad news is her agency still is trying to find where all those old plates are.

The best way to find them, she said, is simply using the new system to find out when a plate not recorded on it is issued to a Colorado motorist. County clerks currently are performing a hand count of plate inventories.

"I'd be satisfied if I could find 80 percent of those and tell you where they are," she admitted.

Rep. Todd Saliman, D-Boulder, said the solution might be to put a temporary hold on the old law demanding new plates -- and letting old plates stay with cars when they are sold.

"This plate replacement program is one of the votes I most regret in my legislative career," Saliman said. "This is one program that has totally gotten away from us and is costing so much more than we projected. It's something we can't afford right now.

"In the grand scheme of things, this is just not as important as some of the critical needs that will have to go by the wayside."

Rocky Mountain News

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