This information is intended to assist local officials who are considering the adoption of a municipal or county vehicle registration fee.
The State legislature authorizes counties to impose a vehicle registration fee for vehicles under 8,000 pounds as one of three(3) Local Government Revenue options(sales tax, room tax, and registration fees). Registration fees are authorized within SS.341.35 of Wisconsin State Statutes.
A $20.00 county vehicle registration fee would bring in an estimated $302,920.00. This projected revenue could be used towards Local Road Improvement Projects (LRIP) and Surface Transportation Program (STP-Bridge or STP-Rural) as well as State and Federal Funding mechanisms.
Since 2000 Richland County has seen a drastic reduction in the overall preventative maintenance and highway construction efforts. Due to cost increases and funding decreases within the highway department, the lack of effort is showing in road and bridge ratings. Richland Counties Infrastructure continues to erode while the available funding from the State and County dollars continues to decline. As a result of a lack of local dollars being invested our General Transportation Aid (GTA) has decreased as well. The GTA formulation is taken from a six year average, thus to increase our maintenance funding it would take six years of investments to result in an increase in our GTA.
For more information and graphs please click on the pdf below.