House supermajority apparently doesn’t want BMV to be accountable

STATEHOUSE – State Rep. Dan Forestal said today that Indiana House Republicans have made it clear that they do not feel the scandal-plagued state Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) needs to be more accountable to the people of Indiana…even after agency officials have admitted they have overcharged Hoosiers more than $100 million to date.

The House supermajority rejected an amendment offered by Forestal that would have demanded more frequent credible public and private audits of BMV finances. The amendment, offered to a BMV “reform” measure (House Bill 1393), was turned down, with House Republicans offering all the votes against it.

“In its current form, HB 1393 does provide for yearly audits, but those are to be handled internally, which is certainly asking the foxes to guard the henhouse,” Forestal said. “My proposal would have required the internal audits to be reviewed by the State Board of Accounts and for the BMV to be audited independently every three years.

“It’s disappointing that the need for these layers of accountability are not desired by the House supermajority,” he continued. “I do not understand their rationale for that position, because there hasn’t been much evidence of accountability among the BMV hierarchy for some time now. They have brought these inquiries upon themselves.”

Forestal’s amendment also attempted to address another of those concerns by asking for the elimination of a “convenience” fee that the BMV has allowed certain private vendors that offer license branch services to charge customers for close to a decade. The purposes of the fee remain vague, but most speculate that charging it enables the private vendors to generate some profit from offering branch services.

“I would seriously doubt that anyone who uses services at these locations would even know they get charged a convenience fee unless they looked closely,” Forestal said.

“Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that this fee received any sort of legislative approval, so the current version of HB 1393 provides it with that legitimacy,” he noted. “My amendment attempted to remove the fee from being charged, but it did provide the BMV the flexibility to allow such a fee, as along as everyone was upfront about what was being done.

“Once again, though, the House supermajority just said no to these reforms, which certainly indicates that they feel it’s easier to talk about greater accountability than to act upon proving it,” Forestal said. “I’m not sure you can afford to be choosy when it involves more than $100 million in taxpayer funds. We shall see if they continue this course through the remainder of this legislative session.”