As Broward County looks for innovative ways to shorten the wait for license plates, it seems Dade County’s privately run tag agencies might not be the best model after all.
Private Dade agencies have shortchanged the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles by $128,526, a state audit has found.
As a result, the state motor-vehicles chief wants to yank the computers from 21 of 24 private Dade tag offices, effec tively putting them out of business.
“It would create total havoc here in Dade County,” said Metro Dade tax collector Richard Gardner.
The tag offices are owned by individuals but act as an arm of the tax collector. The state motor-vehicles division provides tags and decals to sell, and most of the money goes back to Tallahassee. But some agencies can’t account for all the tag decals they’ve received, state officials say.
Gardner and lawyers for the tag agencies have persuaded the state to delay action for 90 days. Settlement talks are under way, with Division of Motor Vehicles Director Charles Brantley set to visit each agency later this month.
Broward wants to follow Dade’s model, so county officials are monitoring the situation closely.
First Broward Auto Tag Agency Inc. is renovating a store at 914 N. Federal Highway and hopes to open in July. The company is owned by Debra Strochak, Kenneth Strochak and Donna Speelman.
All three also own Dade agencies, and each owes the state money, the audit found.
Kenneth Strochak’s Tropical Auto Tag Agency owes $7,684.15; Speelman’s West Flagler Auto Tag Agency owes $1,091.11; and Debra Strochak’s Coral Gables Auto Tag Agency owes $39.09.
Kenneth Strochak said the shortfalls are insignificant given the $57 million license and registration business Dade does every year.
“It’s a problem, but it’s a minor problem,” he said.
State officials say they found serious discrepencies when they looked at the county’s tag records.
“We inventory decals, and [the private agencies) could not account for some decal numbers,” said Janet Dennis, a spokeswoman for the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. “Yet we would show that some decals had not been issued.”
A review showed that many of the decals wound up affixed to large trucks. Trucks are supposed to pay the highest registration taxes – up to $993.60 a year for the heaviest vehicles.
Asked if the shortfalls were part of a fraudulent scheme, Dennis said “it’s too early to say that.”
The audit covered 19 months ending June 1995, Dennis said, but investigators delved further into the records for some individual vehicles.
Kenneth Strochak blamed the state’s computer system, which he said doesn’t allow his clerks to check tag expiration dates. Some truck owners sometimes tell clerks that they need six-month registrations rather than full year renewals, Strochak said.
Sonny Holtzman, an attorney for the the industry group Metro Dade Auto Tag Dealers Inc., called the problems isolated.
“You may have an employee that may steal. You may have an owner that may steal,” Holtzman said. “But they’re all fully bonded; they’re fully insured, and it’s a wonderful system we have here.”
Dade is the only county in Florida that relies predominantly on private agencies to issue license plates. A Manatee County private agency handles bulk transactions for rental car companies, and Polk County has a small private operation.
Broward now runs four tag offices itself. By letting a private company open a fifth, officials hope to shorten lines elsewhere while avoiding the cost of more county workers and office space. The private companies make money by adding fees to standard state license charges.
To prevent problems in Broward, the county wants a county employee stationed at the agency to monitor transactions, among other safeguards, Finance Director Phil Allen said.
“We looked at the Dade model. We’ve looked at the deficiencies. And we’ve changed them,” Allen said.
