DMV baloney

State Sen. Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, has introduced legislation that would allow drivers to make voluntary contributions to highway construction projects when they pay their vehicle registration fees.

The state already has procedures in place to collect voluntary payments from drivers for other causes. Senate Bill 180 passed the upper house last month on a 20-1 vote, and was taken up by the Assembly Transportation Committee on Tuesday.

But Dennis Colling, chief of administration services for the DMV, said the bill would cost taxpayers $51,000 to cover 385 hours worth of computer reprogramming.

Apparently, the technicians who collect a paycheck from the state each week are too busy to take on this particular task. For the DMV to accept donations to the highway trust, some poor schlep is going to have to log some serious overtime — the equivalent of nearly 10 weeks of full-time work.

Fortunately, Transportation Committee members weren’t buying this load of bull.

“We can build roads in 385 hours,” said Assemblyman Mark Manendo, D-Las Vegas. Assemblyman Ed Goedhart pointed out that for a “few hundred dollars,” a small business owner can buy software to run the whole office.

When asked how the DMV came up with the estimate of 385 hours at a cost of $51,000, Mr. Colling admitted that he had no idea.

If a private-sector worker appeared before his bosses and, upon being asked to follow through on a minor assignment, demanded an exorbitant raise and made up projected costs from whole cloth, he’d probably be fired on the spot.

But in Nevada government, such conduct is business as usual.

The Assembly Transportation Committee, chaired by Kelvin Atkinson, D-North Las Vegas, deserves the public’s thanks for calling the DMV on its baloney. But lawmakers are kidding themselves if they think taxpayers will voluntarily donate more of their own wealth to a bloated agency that deliberately exaggerates its needs.