North Texas police band together to support elimination of paper license plates
AUSTIN (CBSNewsTexas.com) – More police are joining the fight to get rid of temporary license plates in Texas.
On Wednesday, leaders from agencies in Grand Prairie, White Settlement, Tarrant County, Irving, Mansfield and more traveled to Austin to show support for Senate Bill 2567. The legislation would effectively eliminate paper tags and require most vehicle sales to use metal plates.
The law enforcement officials CBS News Texas spoke with say the fake plates are being used by criminals in a variety of ways. "The cartel is using this against us every day," said Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn.
"This is not just about avoiding registration of inspection," said White Settlement Police Chief Chris Cook. "This has become the crime of choice, to steal a vehicle or rent a vehicle and slap a fake tag on it and use the vehicle to commit violent robberies or other crimes."
While a real license plate leads back to the owner's name and address, a fraudulent copy effectively turns vehicles into "ghost cars" with no paper trail.
"My department has seized hundreds of paper tags," said Grand Prairie Police Chief Daniel Scesney. CBS News Texas saw the problem firsthand when Doug Dunbar rode along as GPPD officers made traffic stops.
Scesney, who testified last month in front of a House committee, made his case Wednesday to a Senate committee. He also acknowledged the death of Officer Brandon Tsai, who was killed during a pursuit involving a paper tag in November.
Not everyone is onboard with the elimination of paper tags. The Texas Auto Dealers Association said it is worried about keeping track of so many metal plates, while some county tax officials raised questions about how the new process would work.
Then, there's the price tag. According to an analysis by the Legislative Budget Board, SB 2567 could cost nearly $20 million in its first year, including $4.5 million in increased production of metal plates and $15 million to create a new inventory system. The LBB said it would then require an additional $5 million per year in maintenance. That does not include salaries for additional workers needed to distribute the metal plates to more than 20,000 dealerships and county tax offices.
Dallas-area Senator Royce West, the author of SB 567, says those numbers are far from final. "We're going to look at those estimates and see whether they are realistic and if there are alternatives." For now, he's focused on finding solutions that work for the auto industry and police.
Chief Scesney plans to continue to push the legislation as the House version of the bill heads to the House floor next week. "Anyone with a badge in Texas knows that fraudulent paper plates are a problem from bottom to top," he said. "It is a systemic issue that we have to fix."