By Charles Ashby
The Pueblo Chieftain
DENVER — While car owners are facing a possible $41 average hike in their vehicle registration fees to pay for road and bridge repairs, they also may see an additional $1 fee on top of that.
Under a bill that won preliminary approval last week in the Colorado Senate, vehicle registration fees would double to $2, with the additional $5 million generated going to fund emergency medical services.
The measure, SB2, is not connected to another bill designed to hike registration fees based on a vehicle’s weight to pay for transportation projects. That measure, SB109, is expected to raise about $250 million a year.
Sen. John Morse, D-Colorado Springs and the bill’s sponsor, said the money would be used to help rural emergency medical service districts hire 125 paramedics and emergency medical technicians.
“Facilitating the creation of paid positions will increase our response times and therefore our patient outcomes,” Morse said. “In the process, it will add much needed economic stability to our rural communities.” Though the measure did win bipartisan support, some Republican lawmakers still didn’t like the idea, particularly while the Legislature is considering hiking registration fees so dramatically to pay for road projects.
Sen. Dave Schultheis, R-Colorado Springs, also said its timing couldn’t be worse, hiking fees while that bill is being considered and during the worse economic crisis since the Great Depression.
“As important as this is, I don’t think that we should be doing this. We should be reprioritizing where we spend our money, and that should take high priority,” Schultheis said. “I believe (the bill) should have read, ‘Colorado’s taxpayers will be required to cough up another $4.9 million.’ It doesn’t sound like much by only increasing this by a dollar, everyone can afford a dollar, but we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about taking almost $5 million. This is another bill that hurts the poor and less fortunate.”
But Sen. Gail Schwartz, D-Snowmass Village, said emergency crews in the state, particularly in its rural areas, are not getting the money they need to say in business, and that hurts everyone.
She called the fee increase “cheap insurance” for rural parts of the state, saying motorists driving through rural areas will have help when it’s needed.
“We’re seeing more and more of those ambulance services, and those response services highly challenged in terms of their ability to keep EMTs and qualified personnel,” said Schwartz, whose district includes the San Luis Valley. “Our services have been diminished, and $1 is a very low-cost insurance in the state.”
The measures requires a final Senate vote before heading to the House.