Rowland Cut In DMV Seen As Threat To Municipal Budgets

HARTFORD (AP) –– Municipal officials say a small cut proposed in Gov John G. Rowland’s budget for the state Department of Motor Vehicles could cost them millions of dollars.

Gov Rowland has proposed cutting $250,000 used by the DMV to withhold car registrations for motorists who have delinquent local property tax bills and parking tickets.

Officials in several cities and the Connecticut Tax Collectors’ Association say the cut would result in lost revenue and tax receipts.

“That would be an absolute disaster, a terrible, terrible situation,” said Stamford’s head of finance, Director of Administration Thomas Hamilton.

Stamford could lose up to $7 million of $22 million it collected in motor vehicle taxes this year, he said.

The spending cut, which is included in Gov Rowland’s proposed $13.5 billion budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1, is part of his efforts to close a $900 million spending gap.

Marc Ryan, Gov Rowland’s budget director, said cities and towns could hire outside firms to enforce collections of automobile taxes.

Norwalk Mayor Alex Knopp said hiring private firms to collect taxes would be ineffective.

“The defect in that reasoning is it’s the state and not private firms that issue the motor vehicle registrations,” Mr Knopp said. “We do a lot of tax collections using marshals, serving warrants and other techniques. But it’s only because the taxpayer faces a stone wall at the motor vehicle department for not paying their taxes that we collect it. That cannot be replaced by a private firm.”

Greenwich, which expects to collect about $6.5 million in car taxes this year, does not have the manpower to pursue thousands of delinquent car tax accounts, said Greenwich Tax Collector Lou Caravella.

Newtown Tax Collector Carol Mahoney said this week that she was “surprised and frustrated” at the prospect of the state’s elimination of this “very useful incentive” for delinquent taxpayers to pay up. She said that she and Newtown Finance Director Ben Spragg had calculated that Newtown is now owed between $800,000 and $1 million in uncollected taxes on motor vehicles. Without the help of the Department of Motor Vehicles program, she estimated that between $700,000 and $800,000 of that amount would not be collected by the town.

State Senate President Pro Tem Kevin Sullivan said he does not favor many of Gov Rowland’s proposals.

“But we understand if we don’t embrace them ourselves then we have to come up with alternate cuts,” he said.