El Paso County Won’t Allow Those Who Owe County Money To Register Their Vehicles

El Paso County will soon not allow residents to register their vehicles if they owe delinquent fines or fees in hopes raising taxes can be avoided and a $10 million deficit can be covered.

Residents must pay the County Tax Assessor before they renew their registration stickers. However, state law allows a county to refuse to renew the registration of a vehicle if a resident owes money to the county.

County staff is working on programming software to launch the program in July. This would mean that if you owe delinquent funds on citations, truancies, misdemeanors, probation fines, bond forfeitures, hot check fines or any fee out of a criminal or civil court in the county or a justice of the peace, you’d need to pay it at the time of registration.

County Commissioner Dan Haggerty said the county averages about $15 million in delinquent funds every year. Before this, the County has only used two ways to recoup that money: through Sheriff arrest round-ups and by hiring a private attorney to collect from residents.

They’ll still be using these methods, too. Jim Fashing, who’s overseeing the project said he hopes this will prevent employees from losing their jobs and put a halt on furloughs and department budget cuts.

He said the County’s Domestic Relations Office, which assists in family cases, has already been using this method for eight years and it has been incredibly effective.

There is no statute of limitations on County fees, so even if someone owes the fine from several years ago they’ll still have to pay it in full to get their vehicle registered.

County Commissioners have already approved the program.