Amends and repeals existing law to remove certain special plate provisions; to revise a fee and the transfer of certain funds from the Plate Manufacturing Account to the Highway Distribution Account and to the State Highway Account.

The current $3.00 license plate fee has not increased in over 20 years, purchasing power has diminished, and the Department continues to lose money on the production, handling and distribution of license plates. The Department has continued to use the reserve in the account to pay additional costs. However, that reserve has diminished as well. Of the current $3.00 fee for all red, white, and blue plates, $.50 is distributed to the Idaho Heritage Trust fund, leaving $2.50 for the manufacture, production, handling and distribution of license plates. The costs for manufacturing have increased over the years, as has the handling labor costs, office supplies (including envelopes, boxes, shipping costs, postage strips and labels) to a level that the Department is losing a weighted average of at least $0.32 cents for every plate in FY17 which increases to $0.39 cents in FY18. The license plate fee is a cost to the consumer for each plate ($6 for a pair of plates) that is paid every seven years, when the plate's physical life (reflectivity) has been exhausted. This equates to less than $1 per year for a set of plates to the consumer. Current code requires the state highway accounttopayforanyshortageintheplatemanufacturingaccount, whereplatefeesaredistributed. Looking over the next few years, there will be a projected deficit in the plate manufacturing account of $335,000 for FY18, $487,000 for FY19, and $667,000 for FY20 based on current estimated volumes without a fee increase. Estimated plate volumes that will be needed for FY18 are 973,000 plates, FY19 1,038,000, and FY20 1,178,000. It is important to note that actual production costs in FY05 for a standard plate was $2.78 (including the $0.50 heritage trust fund fee), while in FY16 the actual production cost for a standard plate was $3.13 (including the heritage trust fund fee). This represents a thirteen percent increase in costs over ten years strictly in production costs. It does not include increasing costs for actu