Rep calls on police to identify residents with out-of-state plates

By JOSEPH B. NADEAU

WOONSOCKET — Back in the 1980s former Mayor Charles C. Baldelli had an idea for increasing the city’s collection of tax revenues.

Baldelli asked the police department to keep tabs on out-of-state motor vehicles parked overnight in the city to determine if any were actually improperly registered vehicles owned by local residents.
State Rep. Lisa Baldelli-Hunt, the former mayor’s niece, believes that given the city’s dire fiscal situation, a move to revisit the past might be in order.
The former mayor’s vehicle check program turned up 500 residents with cars registered outside the city and that number represented a lot of revenue not being collected by the city, according to Baldelli-Hunt.
When legal residents don’t register their cars in-state, they not only avoid paying Rhode Island registration fees but also vehicle taxes that go directly to their home communities.
“That not only represents a loss to the state but also to our city,” Baldelli-Hunt said.
Some states, like Florida and New Hampshire, do not charge taxes on vehicles and thereby pose a savings for someone retaining those registration plates. Other states like Massachusetts and Connecticut may have lower insurance costs for vehicles as an incentive to keeping plates from those states.
Some owners may receive a savings on insurance costs based on listing their vehicle as being kept in a suburban community rather than a higher risk urban city.
For whatever reason, Baldelli-Hunt said it is now possible to find out-of-state registered vehicles in just about every city neighborhood.
Baldelli-Hunt said she has heard of several Massachusetts-registered vehicles being parked at city apartment buildings everyday of the week.
If it turns out the owners of the vehicles are city residents, Baldelli-Hunt said those owners need to correct their registration discrepancy within 10 days of becoming a city resident.
“They need to turn in their plates to Massachusetts and register their vehicles in Rhode Island with their address in Woonsocket because that is where they live,” she said.
The amount of money owed the state includes the $61.50 for the state’s registration fee and any sales tax if the car was purchased by the person as a resident of Rhode Island, according to Baldelli-Hunt.
The city’s revenue from motor vehicles is based on the valuation of the car under its tax schedule and the payment the state provides for its deferment of a portion of that valuation.
In effect, the state pays the city the tax revenue it would have collected on the first $6,000 valuation under its phase-out of excise taxes and the city then collects taxes on the remaining valuation on an eligible vehicle, according to Baldelli-Hunt.
For a new car valued at $33,000, the city would collect its vehicle tax rate of $46.58 per $1,000 on $27,000 of that value, approximately $1,300, and also receive a payment from the state for the taxes on the deferred $6,000 of value.
As vehicles decline in value so does the tax revenue they generate for the city. But Baldelli-Hunt said even a vehicle valuated at just over $8,000 will generate nearly $380 in assessed taxes and an additional payment from the state rollback of the car tax.
“There is a lot of money out there and people need to pay their fair share,” Baldelli-Hunt said of the out-state-registration problem. The revenues that the city collects on motor vehicles is the only revenue some residents who live in apartments provide the community, she noted.
While there may be a need for the city to find any available revenue source, recouping funding for improperly registered vehicles may not be an easy task, according to Baldelli-Hunt.
The representative said she spoke to Police Chief Thomas S. Carey about her concerns, and he is currently researching how the police department could enforce the laws requiring motorists to register their vehicles in the community in which they live.
The police department is already working short-staffed due to recent retirements and Baldelli-Hunt said she understands the department may not have the freedom to check vehicles over a period of days as was done in the 1980s.
But Carey indicated the department may be able to put registration scofflaws on notice that they will be cited if identified and that could be a start, according to Baldelli.
“He indicated they may be able to put out a public service announcement notifying residents to get their cars properly registered and indicating what the next step would be,” she said.
Carey said awareness by the public might help alleviate some of the concern being raised by Baldelli-Hunt. “We could indicate this is what the law states and ask people to comply,” he said.
The police department would be limited to checking registrations for cause and running someone’s license plate would depend on the situation involved, he noted.
“We would have to look at the requirements for using the registration system and make sure that we comply with those requirements,” he said.
The city’s tax assessor, Arthur Bouchard, said he is already aware of the difficulties involved in identifying out-of-town registered vehicles and connecting those vehicles to residents of the city.
“I’ve been trying to do that for 40 years but I haven’t always been successful,” Bouchard said in support of Baldelli-Hunt’s ideas.
Bouchard will be told by someone every so often that a resident is maintaining out-of-state registration on their locally-based vehicles and he investigates all those reports.
Sometimes he is able to connect a resident with a vehicle and will then send them a letter notifying them of the taxes and fees they owe.
 At other times, Bouchard is not able to make a connection, however, because he is not allowed to make the checks through the state’s registration system.
“If I can’t get the data off the registration number, I have no option for finding out who owns the vehicle,” he said.
And, given the fact his job is that of assessor, Bouchard said he also has no direct authority to “force anybody to register their vehicle in the state.”  That responsibility, he noted lies with the Registry of Motor Vehicles and law enforcement.
Like Baldelli-Hunt, Bouchard said he believes it would be in the city’s financial interest to reduce the number of improperly registered vehicles in the community.
“If you drive around the city, you can probably find out-of-state registrations at every third for fourth house,” he said.
On Friday, Police Lt. Eugene Jalette said the department was already putting together a plan to notify local residents of their responsibility to register vehicles in their home community.
Under state law, motorists have 10 days to notify the Registry of Motor Vehicles of a change of address and must acquire new plates once that notification is made, according to Jalette.
A person making an in-state registration change has two days to acquire new plates and a person making an out-of-state registration change three days to obtain plates, he said.
A person purchasing a vehicle from a dealer can operate on a dealer’s temporary registration for 20 days before acquiring permanent plates, he said.
A violation of the state address notification law can draw a state fine of $85 for each violation, according to Jalette. The city also has an ordinance stating that no out-of-city registered vehicle can be parked on a city street for longer than three days.
Such vehicles found parked in the city longer than that period can be fined $25 for a first offense, $100 for a second offense and $250 for any subsequent offense under the municipal rule.
The city ordinance pertains to vehicles parked on city streets, but a vehicle with improper registration plates parked on a private property could still be subject to the state fine, he said.
There are potential exemptions for someone who uses a company car registered out-of-state vehicle for work and Jalette said that issue could be presented to a judge in answer to a citation.
Anyone having questions on registration requirements can contact the department for more information, he said.
“Right now we’re just following an education component of law enforcement,” he said. At a future date, however, the department will be taking a more active role in identifying improperly registered vehicles, Jalette added.