Jan 13, 2017 By Mark Hofmann And Steve Barrett 6 min read

A new year in Pennsylvania has brought an end to applying registration tags to vehicles as local police departments would like to see the state open up resources so they can afford equipment to read license plates.

According to the state Department of Transportation, the elimination of registration stickers on vehicles was a part of Act 89, which became law in November 2013 to fund road projects, bridge repairs and public transit.

The elimination of the stickers, which went in effect Jan. 1, is expected to save the taxpayers approximately $3 million per year.

While the stickers will no longer be issued, motorists must still maintain their annual registration to keep their vehicles current, but many municipal police departments will need specialized scanners to read license plates and automatically alert police of an expired registration.

The biggest problem, according to numerous local law enforcement officers, is the cost of the scanners.

Chief John Hartman with the Southwest Regional Police Department, which covers municipalities in Greene, Fayette, Westmoreland and Washington counties, said they’re looking into the different types of scanning equipment as well as determining how many vehicles would need to be equipped and also how to pay for it.

“That can take a bite out of your budget,” Hartman said.

Hartman said when the capability for an officer to see and determine that a vehicle registration is not valid and if the department cannot afford the technology, someone will have to take the brunt of the burden to determine valid registrations.

“I fear it’s going to be the 911 centers,” Hartman said. “I think they’re going to be inundated with calls.”

Hartman said before, a glance at a registration sticker could give an officer a good sense of whether the vehicle should be on the road or if the plate is stolen or if the vehicle should even be on the roadway.

Hartman said there’s a downside when a system is removed on which another system depends and adjustments need to take place.

“We’re in a period of adjustment,” Hartman said. “If the state says the answer is technology, how will the state help us?”

Waynesburg Borough Police Chief Robert Toth also addressed his concerns regarding the issue, stating that the costs for the scanners is too much for the department.

“I priced them sometime last year, and the costs were astronomical,” he said. “There is no way our department and borough can afford them. We have five vehicles, and the cost to get the scanners in all of them would be staggering.”

Toth wondered why the state was not offering assistance in the costs.

“If the state wants this, then they should reach out and help the smaller departments with grants or funding, or at least point us in the right direction for assistance,” he said.

Because the department cannot afford the scanners, Toth said it will hinder their jobs as law enforcers.

“When we see an expired sticker, it provides probable cause to pull someone over who may be breaking the law,” he said. “Because of the expired stickers, we’ve been able to apprehend drunk drivers, confiscate drugs or unlawful weapons, basically getting criminals off the streets. But not having the stickers or being able to purchase the scanners to check plates is going to drastically reduce the possibilities of detecting criminal behavior. So who benefits? The criminals.”

“Basically,” he added, “it wasn’t broken before, so I don’t know why the state is trying to ‘fix’ it.”

Toth said his department and borough made “great strides” in 2016 with purchasing tools and equipment that aided officers, including portable radios, control rifles, shotguns, computers and cameras in the vehicles – all within the department’s budget. However, there is no room in their budget for the new scanners.

“When pricing just the scanners, that didn’t include any other possible costs – training, software, installation, maintenance, et cetera. We just simply cannot afford it, and I’m sure a lot of other police departments are saying the same thing.”

Meanwhile, Chief Joe Ryan with the Masontown Police Department, Fayette County, said they briefly looked into the scanners, but the search concluded when he saw the price tag between $16,000 and $18,000 for each of his four vehicles.

“My budget is what it is,” Ryan said, adding that even if the scanners were going for $10,000 each, he doesn’t have $40,000 in his budget to afford such technology.

Lt. Tom Kolencik with the Uniontown Police Department, Fayette County, said they don’t have any of the scanners but said the department’s police chief, Jason Cox, is looking into it for their 10 vehicles as well as seeing if any grants are available for smaller police departments.

Kolencik said police spotting an expired sticker with their own eyes is something to prompt them to run a license plate number to see if there’s a more serious offense because most times an expired sticker is just the motorist forgetting to put on the sticker.

“Now, it’s going to be a complete guessing game,” Kolencik said, adding that he anticipates that officers will end up running more tags through 911 than before.

Chief Paul Brand with the Carroll Township Police Department said the scanners “are fairly expensive,” and stressed that he doesn’t have any plans to install the scanners on his department’s four vehicles. He doesn’t know how effective the plate scanners will be.

“I feel that it will limit our ability to determine expired registrations,” Brand said.

He added that the belief from the state that money will be saved may not justify the money that will be lost through fines stemming from spotting an expired sticker.

“We can’t arbitrarily run every plate through 911,” Brand said.

Ryan said another issue his department faces is the lack of cellular service in his department’s coverage area, which has prevented his officers from having mobile data terminals in vehicles that allow an officer to access crash reporting systems and other data.

While Ryan said he continues to check with cellular providers to see if coverage has improved, he said the cellular service is so bad, it would be a waste of funds to pay for technology that won’t even work when officers are on the road.

Those in law enforcement said the scanners may become a reality for them if the price of the technology goes down or if the state opens a funding stream to assist in the purchasing of the equipment.

Brand said he hopes Harrisburg takes another look at saving money by possibly consolidating registration and inspection into one sticker that will make it easier for police to identify an expiration and not strain the department’s funding on the plate readers.