About 121,000 vehicles could be affected by fee increase, says PennDOT

On Tuesday, the Centre County commissioners provided an update to the $5 motor-vehicle registration fee increase ordinance proposed by the board last week.

In 2013, the Act 89 transportation bill signed by then-Gov. Tom Corbett allowed counties to raise the vehicle registration fee by $5, but the county declined to take the necessary steps to do so until this year.

The ordinance proposed by the county would raise the registration fee for passenger automobiles, trucks, motorcycles, buses, limousines, motor-homes, trailers and semi-trailers.

Since last week’s board meeting, the state Department of Transportation revised the number of vehicles in the county that would be affected by the increase. There are now almost 121,000 vehicles registered in the county that would see a fee increase. That number is more than 3,000 additional vehicles since April, according to PennDOT.

The fee increase would generate just more than $600,000 for the county to allocate to municipalities for infrastructure repair.

Commissioner Michael Pipe has authored an informational package that will be mailed to all 35 municipalities throughout the county. The package includes a survey which asks the municipalities if they are in favor of the increase and what projects they would consider funding.

The municipalities have until March 1 to respond via email or post-mark response by Feb. 24.

While the county awaits the responses, there will be town-hall meeting scheduled to gather input from community members.

The county is also considering opening an email account to field questions and input from community members in regard to the issue.

That email address and the dates of the town halls are expected in the coming weeks.

This story was originally published January 10, 2017 at 6:08 PM with the headline "About 121,000 vehicles could be affected by fee increase, says PennDOT."