Full Report (PDF) - Office of the Legislative Auditor

42MOTOR VEmCLE DEPUTY REGISTRARSDeputy registmr revenue can be estimated from transaction counts collected bythe Deparbnent of Public Safety and the Deparbnent ofNaturnl Resources. Formost deputy registrars, revenue estimates obtained from these counts were close tothe revenue reported by deputy registrars. However, we found discrepancies fortwo deputies that were due to errors made by the Department of Public Safety. Asa result, we used the revenue figures reported by deputy registrars. In a few cases,we used DPS figures because we did not receive revenue figures from the deputyregistrars.The 1993 Legislature increased the administrative fee for drivers' licenses from $1to $3.50, effective July 1, 1993. Since we collected revenue and expense datafrom 1992, they do not include revenue from the recent fee increase. To estimatethe effect of the fee increase on deputy registrnrs' income, we estimated what theirrevenue would have been if they had received $3.50 for each driver's license transaction(or $3.00 for deputy registrars that give the county $.50 for each driver's licensetransaction).Our financialdata haveunavoidablelimitations butthey provideI reasonableestimates ()f"deputyregistrars'income.Deputy registmr revenues fluctuate from year to year due to the two year renewalcycle for trailers weighing 3,000 pounds or less. Registration of these trailersmust be renewed during odd years (e.g., 1991, 1993, 1995), while tax-exempt vehiclesmust be renewed during even years. Since there are more trailers than taxexemptvehicles, revenues in even numbered years are lower than inodd-numbered years. 2 As a result, our income estimates, which are based on 1992data, are conservative estimates.Although our financial data have severnl unavoidable limitations, we believe thatour data provide reasonable estimates of deputy registrars' incomes. In the remainderof this section, we discuss data limitations for public, non-profit, and privatedeputy registrnrs.Public Deputy RegistrarsMany cities and counties combine their deputy registrars with other functions,which sometimes makes it difficult to isolate deputy registrars' expenses. Somecounty deputy registrars are part of a county license center that provides otherservices such as marriage licenses, birth and death certificates, or passports. Forexample, Hennepin County's service centers provide a wide variety of additionalservices, including vital statistics, property tax payments, voter registration, beer licenses,and auctioneer licenses. In cities, deputy registrar staff may help withother city business, such as sewer and water bills or elections. Consequently, weasked cities and counties to estimate the expenses attributable to the deputy registrar.Some cities and counties allocate their expenses as part of their nonnalbudget process. In other cases, city and county staff estimated how much timeeach employee spent on deputy registmr business. In four counties, including2 The average number of motor vehicle transactions processed by deputy registrars during 1991and 1993 exceeded the number processed during 1992 by about 300,000. As a result, revenues ofdeputy registrars during even-nwnbered years were about 5 percent less than revenues (includingdriver's license revenues) during odd-numbered years, or between 2 and 3 percent less than an "average"year.