Creates certain specialty license plates (EG SEE FISC NOTE GF EX)

House Bill 854 amends the Louisiana motor vehicle license plate statutes to create seven new specialty prestige license plate categories. The bill modifies R.S. 47:463.73(G) to add Huntington High School and Green Oaks Performing Arts Academy to the existing list of Louisiana high schools eligible for special prestige plates, and enacts five entirely new statutes (R.S. 47:463.243 through 463.247) establishing specialty plates for Alzheimer's Awareness, Lupus Awareness, Krewe of Sobek, Mystic Krewe of Imani, and Krewe of Harambee. Each new specialty plate becomes available once the Department of Public Safety and Corrections receives a minimum of one thousand applicants. The specialty plates are restricted to passenger cars, pickup trucks, recreational vehicles, motorcycles, and vans. The department will collect an annual royalty fee of twenty-five dollars per plate holder plus a handling fee of three dollars and fifty cents, with the department retaining one dollar from each annual fee to cover administrative costs.

The distribution of the remaining annual fees differs based on plate type. For the Alzheimer's Awareness and Lupus Awareness plates, the department forwards the remainder of each annual fee to the respective charitable organizations—the Alzheimer's Association Louisiana Chapter and the R. Tammy Fleming Lupus Foundation—designated as donations from applicants. For the three Krewe plates, all annual royalty fees collected by the department are forwarded directly to the applicable krewe, to be used exclusively for that krewe's activities. Design and color selection for each plate requires the secretary of the department to work in conjunction with either the relevant health organization for the awareness plates or the krewe captain for the krewe plates, and all designs must comply with R.S. 47:463(A)(3). The Krewe plates have an additional eligibility restriction, limiting issuance to members in good standing of each respective krewe, whereas the awareness and high school plates are issued to any Louisiana citizen upon application.

These specialty plates operate within the existing statutory framework governing Louisiana motor vehicle license plates codified in Title 47 of the Louisiana Revised Statutes, specifically Chapter 4 concerning the Department of Public Safety and Corrections. The annual fees imposed are supplementary to the standard motor vehicle license tax required under Article VII, Section 5 of the Louisiana Constitution. The bill grants the secretary of the Department of Public Safety and Corrections rulemaking authority to implement the provisions of each new statute. The legislature directed the office of motor vehicles to create these specialty plates once applicable statutory provisions are met and the department's system is updated to accommodate the new plates, indicating implementation is conditional on both meeting the one thousand applicant threshold and achieving necessary technical modifications to the motor vehicle registration system.