Ohio drivers should be in a state of lamentation over a non-existent license lamination fee collected between July of 2018 and July of 2019.
The Bureau of Motor Vehicles hit an estimated two million drivers with a $1.50 fee for lamination, even though the licenses were no longer laminated.
No one is seriously hurt financially by a buck fifty overcharge. But the competence and character of our state government is surely revealed by the eager collection of money for nothing.
There’s a class action lawsuit against the BMV in the Ohio Court of Claims, seeking restitution with interest for the two million drivers hit with the charge. Frankly, the lawsuit is most interesting as a catalyst to legislative solution.
Rather than part with pocket change. Rather than structure operations to collect only for services actually performed, the crucial transportation budget simply increased the fees the BMV could charge and the lamination expense was recovered as part of a general processing fee.
The lawsuit reveals the embarrassment of much more than a fictitious fee; it shows the state government ever ready to protect its interest over ours. For the cost of a cup of coffee, we get a little lesson in how Ohio government really works.
Our lamentation is not over the lamination expense, but over yet another example that citizens are not the first priority of Ohio government. Problems we have yet to discover and find hard to imagine will flow from the government first mentality in the Capitol.
First Published August 18, 2022, 4:00 a.m.
