(Spirit Lake)– Beginning July 1st, counties in Iowa that issue driver’s licenses and I-D cards will be able to start charging a fee to certain people utilizing the service that don’t live in the county. Dickinson County Treasurer Kris Rowley says it’s the result of House File 718 passed in the last session of the Iowa Legislature and signed into law by Governor Kim Reynolds on May 4th of this year that is intended to reduce property taxes…
“This bill allows counties that issue driver’s licenses to charge a convenience fee to help subsidize the monies coming into the county because so much of the driver’s license staff and whatnot is paid for out of property taxes and so it’s going to help with that because of people coming in from out of town and most of them don’t pay property taxes in the county they’re showing up at.”
Rowley estimates that would effect about 20 percent of those going through the Dickinson County driver’s license station…
“We do have quite a bit of that but in this bill if you pay property taxes, so if you own property and pay property taxes in that county that you’re using the services, even if you live somewhere else, you don’t have to pay the fee. The fee will be waived. In our county we have a lot of people that own a second or third home in this area and so those people, if they use our driver’s license station when they’re here, usually it’s like in the summer, then they wouldn’t have to pay that fee.”
She says those that DO have to pay the fee will have to pay it separately…
“The motor vehicle system has not programmed in the $10 charge fee yet so they’ll have to pay in two forms. One for their driver’s license because that goes right to the state for money, and then they’ll have to bring in the $10 separate. It could be a check, it could be in cash, we could run the card again, but for now it has to be in two separate transactions so it’s a little inconvenient but hopefully the motor vehicle department with the State of Iowa will get that program pretty quick so they can do it seamless with one transaction.”
Rowley reminds everyone the Dickinson County driver’s license station is open by appointment only. Call 336-6333 and select option 3.
