How about a vehicle registration fee for Bend instead of the proposed transportation fee?

When people suggest alternatives to the transportation fee, a vehicle registration fee often comes up. But a registration fee can get messy. It would require passage in a countywide vote and Bend would likely get less than half of the fee.

Bend’s plan for the transportation fee is to charge a flat fee per house or apartment. Homes might pay a flat rate of $15 per month. Apartments would pay a few dollars less. And there are plans for some sort of discount for low-income residents.

There would also be a fee for nonresidential buildings. The city is still working out how to charge that.

Of course, people don’t like the idea of a new fee. A vehicle registration fee comes up as an alternative. The argument is it might better reflect the actual use of the transportation system than a flat fee per building.

We reached out to the Oregon Department of Transportation to find out how a registration fee could work. Thank you Michelle Godfrey, an ODOT public information officer, for answering our questions.

In Deschutes County today, you only pay a state vehicle registration fee. “Roughly 50% of revenue goes to local governments, separated 30% to counties and 20% to cities,” Godfrey told us.

The city of Bend could not add on its own vehicle registration fee under current law. It would be a countywide registration fee and Bend would get a share of it.

The maximum amount of that add-on fee would depend on the vehicle type and its rating for miles per gallon. For instance, a passenger vehicle that gets between 20 mpg and 39 mpg would have a maximum fee of $136 for every 2-year registration renewal.

Bend would not get all of the fee. Unless the county and the cities of the county agree otherwise, the county would get 60% of the revenue and cities would get 40%.

Passage of such a fee would also require a countywide vote.

The Bend City Council can implement a transportation fee without a vote.

It can also set up discounts for low-income people and do things like charge more or less for certain types of nonresidential buildings.

So if you were a member of city staff or a member of the Bend City Council, you can see why they are advocating a transportation fee and not a vehicle registration fee.

You may not like a transportation fee, but that’s why we will likely be paying, at least for now.

If you are really curious, many of the relevant statutes of county vehicle registration fees are here: tinyurl.com/ORSdriver.