Hearing planned on license plate fee
County considering raising the cost of license plates by $5
County Engineer Andy Conrad would like to raise the annual license plate fee by $5. File photo
MEDINA – County officials are moving forward with a proposal by Highway Engineer Andy Conrad to increase the annual license plate fee for some county residents by $5.
Public hearings on the proposal have been scheduled at 9 a.m. June 13 and 7 p.m. June 19 in the commissioners’ meeting room on the second floor of the County Administration Building in Medina.
If approved by commissioners, the $5 increase in license plate fees would generate about $500,000 a year which Conrad said is sorely needed to keep up with rising road maintenance costs.
The $5 increase would not be applied to residents of Brunswick, Lodi, Medina, Seville or Wadsworth where the license plate fees are already at the $20 maximum local taxing districts are allowed to impose under current state law.
The Ohio Revised Code allows counties, municipalities and townships to enact optional permissive taxes on annual vehicle registrations in addition to the base $34.50 fee imposed by the state. Those taxes can be levied in $5 increments but may not exceed $20 in any taxing district.
It would, however, affect residents in the rest of the county where the locally imposed license plate fees range from $10 to $15. Communities where the local fee is currently $10 are Gloria Glens, Westfield Center, Spencer, Chippewa Lake, Granger, Guilford, Harrisville, Hinckley, Litchfield, Liverpool, Medina Township, Sharon, York and Wadsworth Township.
The current local license plate fee is $15 in Brunswick Hills, Chatham, Homer, Lafayette, Montville and Westfield townships.
The county highway department is funded primarily by gasoline taxes and license plate fees and gets no money at all from local real estate taxes that fund schools and some other local government services. Conrad said his department gets about $2.3 million a year from gasoline taxes and about $5.3 million in license plate fees.
“The revenue coming in has been stagnant since 2006,” Conrad said. “Meanwhile, the cost of asphalt has gone up 60 percent, limestone aggregate has gone up 80 percent and the chip and seal oil we use has gone up 100 percent.”
The consequences of rising costs with no additional funding is that road maintenance dollars do not go nearly as far as they used to. Conrad said his department can now afford to repave 15-20 miles of asphalt roads a year and put a new chip and seal surface on another 20 miles of road.
“We have some roads in the county that haven’t been touched in 20 years because the money hasn’t been there to fix them,” said County Commissioner Bill Hutson, who is supportive of Conrad’s proposal to raise the license plate fee.
“It’s difficult to keep up at the rate we’re going,” Conrad said. “An asphalt surface normally lasts from seven to nine years. Our time between resurfacing roads now is getting pushed way back. Some roads aren’t going to get resurfaced for 22 years at the pace we’re going now. That’s not in the best interest of the motoring public.”
Conrad says the highway department has been worried about the problem for years and held out some small hope that the state or federal government would raise the gasoline tax since the road funding problem is not unique to Medina County.
“People have been suggesting an increase in the gasoline tax, but there just doesn’t seem to be any appetite for it now in Columbus or Washington,” Conrad said.
Public hearings on the proposal have been scheduled at 9 a.m. June 13 and 7 p.m. June 19 in the commissioners’ meeting room on the second floor of the County Administration Building in Medina.
If approved by commissioners, the $5 increase in license plate fees would generate about $500,000 a year which Conrad said is sorely needed to keep up with rising road maintenance costs.
The $5 increase would not be applied to residents of Brunswick, Lodi, Medina, Seville or Wadsworth where the license plate fees are already at the $20 maximum local taxing districts are allowed to impose under current state law.
The Ohio Revised Code allows counties, municipalities and townships to enact optional permissive taxes on annual vehicle registrations in addition to the base $34.50 fee imposed by the state. Those taxes can be levied in $5 increments but may not exceed $20 in any taxing district.
It would, however, affect residents in the rest of the county where the locally imposed license plate fees range from $10 to $15. Communities where the local fee is currently $10 are Gloria Glens, Westfield Center, Spencer, Chippewa Lake, Granger, Guilford, Harrisville, Hinckley, Litchfield, Liverpool, Medina Township, Sharon, York and Wadsworth Township.
The current local license plate fee is $15 in Brunswick Hills, Chatham, Homer, Lafayette, Montville and Westfield townships.
The county highway department is funded primarily by gasoline taxes and license plate fees and gets no money at all from local real estate taxes that fund schools and some other local government services. Conrad said his department gets about $2.3 million a year from gasoline taxes and about $5.3 million in license plate fees.
“The revenue coming in has been stagnant since 2006,” Conrad said. “Meanwhile, the cost of asphalt has gone up 60 percent, limestone aggregate has gone up 80 percent and the chip and seal oil we use has gone up 100 percent.”
The consequences of rising costs with no additional funding is that road maintenance dollars do not go nearly as far as they used to. Conrad said his department can now afford to repave 15-20 miles of asphalt roads a year and put a new chip and seal surface on another 20 miles of road.
“We have some roads in the county that haven’t been touched in 20 years because the money hasn’t been there to fix them,” said County Commissioner Bill Hutson, who is supportive of Conrad’s proposal to raise the license plate fee.
“It’s difficult to keep up at the rate we’re going,” Conrad said. “An asphalt surface normally lasts from seven to nine years. Our time between resurfacing roads now is getting pushed way back. Some roads aren’t going to get resurfaced for 22 years at the pace we’re going now. That’s not in the best interest of the motoring public.”
Conrad says the highway department has been worried about the problem for years and held out some small hope that the state or federal government would raise the gasoline tax since the road funding problem is not unique to Medina County.
“People have been suggesting an increase in the gasoline tax, but there just doesn’t seem to be any appetite for it now in Columbus or Washington,” Conrad said.