Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Those who owe DMV won’t get rebate checks

CARSON CITY -- People who owe the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles money won't be getting checks as part of the $300 million rebate program authorized by the 2005 Legislature, officials said Tuesday. But the approximately 2,700 people whose DMV debts are from 1999 or years prior to that will soon see those obligations -- which total $534,096 -- wiped off the books. The state Board of Examiners on Tuesday agreed to write that amount off as a bad debt. The average amount owed is $188, officials said.

Gov. Kenny Guinn, chairman of the board, said the people who have owed that money for years, as well as anybody else who owes the DMV, won't be eligible to receive rebates. The rebates, which will go to just about everyone else who who registered vehicles in Nevada last year, will range from $75 to $275 depending on the amounts paid to register vehicles. From the last five and a half years, there are about 12,000 people who owe the DMV $4,783,637, including interest and penalties, DMV spokesman Tom Jacobs said. Guinn said people who owe other state agencies money will still qualify for the rebate program because it would be too difficult to track the other accounts and match them up with the DMV list eligible registrants of vehicles.

The governor confirmed the state is working with Bank of America to write and mail the checks when the motor vehicle department compiles the final list of eligible recipients.

The motor vehicle department said it should have the list by Aug. 30. The governor said there would be a 30-day testing period for Bank of America to make sure the system works without glitches.

Guinn said State Budget Director Perry Comeaux told the board that the $534,096 is the debt that is left after an even larger amount had gone through the debt collection program run by Controller Kathy Augustine.

Dennis Colling, chief of administration for the Department of Motor Vehicles, said it receives about 5,000 bad checks a year totaling $1.1 million to $1.2 million. He said when the department contacts debtors and about half of them , "immediately make good" on the debts plus interest and penalty.

After a motorist bounces a check to the department to motor vehicles, two efforts are made to contact him or her by mail to make good the debt. If he or she refuses, than either their driver's license or their vehicle registration is suspended, Jacobs said.

If the bad check is for the driver's license, then the license is suspended. If the bogus payment is for the vehicle registration, that is suspended. The information about those suspensions then goes into law enforcement databanks and officers have access to that information when they pull over vehicles and run checks on the vehicles and their drivers.

In addition, the person's name is flagged in the department's computer and they are not allowed to conduct any further business with the DMV -- no license or vehicle registration renewals, for example -- until the bad check is cleared up.

Each year, about 2,500 names of debtors are turned over to the state's debt collection agency after 90 days, and the debt collection agency continues to look for these individuals, Colling said.

The debt-collection loss for the department, Colling said, is less than 1/2 of 1 percent compared with a typical rate of 2 to 4 percent for most businesses.

Colling said state law mandates that the rebate program ends Dec. 31. He said a person who has a debt with the department must clear up that debt before Dec. 31 in order to be eligible for the rebate.

On Tuesday, the state Board of Examiners also agreed to write off $694 from bad checks given to the state Division of Parks. Comeaux said people sometimes deposit bogus checks for entry fees to parks where the gates are unattended.

The board agreed to release $920,685 to the White Pine County School District and $485,000 to the Lincoln County School District for building needs. This is the final allocation of a $16 million bond issue approved by the 1999 Legislature to help those financially strapped districts to upgrade their schools.

The allocation still needs approval from the Legislative Interim Finance Committee that meets in September.

The state pays off these bonds with a portion of property tax revenue.

The board approved a $150,000 settlement for the survivors of Steve Parsons of Carson City, who was killed in a traffic crash in August 2002 on U.S. 50 three miles from Fallon.

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