Driver info hike gets OK of Senate

A bill that would increase by $1.50 the fee for obtaining a person’s driving record cleared the Senate on Thursday.

The Senate voted 27-2 to send Senate Bill 268 by Sen. Blake Johnson, R-Corning, to the House.

Johnson said the Office of Driver Services charges a $7 fee for a person’s driving record information. The fee has been in existence since 1989 and Lexus-Nexis is the main consumer of that information, which it compiles for insurance companies.

He said $6 of the current fee goes to the Department of Transportation and $1 goes to the state Department of Finance and Administration.

The $1.50 increase would go to the Arkansas State Police under the bill, Johnson said.

He said the fee increase is projected by state officials to raise between $1.5 million and $1.8 million a year to help make up for the loss of revenue from the enactment of another measure halving the fee for a concealed carry gun license and the fee for renewing that license.

The Office of Driver Services processed more than 1 million driver record transactions a year from 2015 through 2018, the state Department of Finance and Administration reported in a legislative impact statement on SB268.

Act 61 will cut the concealed carry license fee from $100 to $50 and the renewal fee from $35 to $25. The initial fee for senior citizens will drop from $50 to $25. That cut will reduce revenue to the Arkansas State Police by about $1.4 million a year, according to agency officials.

Since neither SB268 and Act 61 have an emergency clause, “we would not expect either to impact until at least 90 days post sine die,” or adjournment, said Bill Sadler, a spokesman for the state police.