OFFICE OF FISCAL ANALYSIS

Legislative Office Building, Room 5200

Hartford, CT 06106 ↓ (860) 240-0200

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SB-371

AN ACT CONCERNING THE INDICATION OF A PERSON'S STATUS AS A VETERAN ON A MOTOR VEHICLE OPERATOR'S LICENSE AND IDENTITY CARD.

As Amended by Senate "A" (LCO 6733), Senate "B" (LCO 7958)

Senate Calendar No. : 236

OFA Fiscal Note

State Impact:

Note: TF=Transportation Fund; GF=General Fund

Municipal Impact: None

Explanation

Section 1 results in a one-time cost of $250,000 in FY 14 to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) for programming an interface system between the driver's licensing database system, the license card production system, and the Department of Veteran's Affairs (DVA). The interface system between DMV and DVA is required in order for DMV to verify the status of veterans.

The costs are anticipated to occur in FY 14 after necessary changes are completed to comply with the federal REAL-ID Act requirements. These changes to accommodate REAL-ID are expected to be finalized by July 1, 2013. Therefore any costs that would occur to implement an identifier on driver's licenses or DMV identification cards are not anticipated until FY 14.

Section 501 extends free lifetime passes for free parking, admission and boat access parking for use at any state park, forest or state recreational facility to a disabled veteran as defined by the state.

There are about 8,000 season passes purchased annually. It is unknown how many of these are purchased by disabled veterans. To the extent that any of these are purchased by this group of individuals currently, these individuals would no longer have to purchase these passes in the future and the state would experience a revenue loss of $67 per pass.

Disabled veterans who currently do not purchase season passes but would seek passes under the bill as amended would not generate any additional revenue loss to the state.

Senate 'A' strikes the original bill but does not change the original fiscal impact stated in the file copy for section 1.

Senate 'B' adds section 501 to the bill and results in the fiscal impact described above.

The Out Years

The annualized ongoing fiscal impact identified above would continue into the future subject to inflation and subject to the number of season passes issued to disabled veterans.

The preceding Fiscal Impact statement is prepared for the benefit of the members of the General Assembly, solely for the purposes of information, summarization and explanation and does not represent the intent of the General Assembly or either chamber thereof for any purpose. In general, fiscal impacts are based upon a variety of informational sources, including the analyst's professional knowledge. Whenever applicable, agency data is consulted as part of the analysis, however final products do not necessarily reflect an assessment from any specific department.