State auditor: Thousands of criminal drivers on roads

BOSTON – Up to 9,000 drivers convicted of criminal traffic violations are still on the road in Massachusetts due to court processing delays.A report released Wednesday by State Auditor Joseph DeNucci indicates 7,500 to 9,000 motorists with criminal citation dispositions handled during 2005 and 2006 were able to keep their licenses for an average two to four additional years due to administrative delays in the processing of those citations or, in some cases, holdups by the courts in submitting the case dispositions to the state Registry of Motor Vehicles.Once received from the courts, the Registry forwards dispositions to the Merit Rating Board for entry into the agency’s computerized database. According to DeNucci, an audit conducted by his office found there are no procedures in place at the Registry or in the courts to determine whether all court dispositions are entered into the database in a timely manner.”The Registry is the primary agency responsible for the administration and enforcement of our motor vehicle laws, so it has a responsibility to ensure that the public is protected by suspending or revoking the licenses of unsafe drivers as soon as possible following a court disposition,” he said.Registry officials told DeNucci the delay in entering dispositions into the database was caused in part by difficulty in obtaining the information from the courts.The audit also found that many communities statewide have lost out on millions of dollars in automobile excise tax revenues because of untimely or inaccurate tax billings to owners of luxury automobiles over the course of several years. The Registry assigned well below market valuations for thousands of vehicles such as Ferraris, Maseratis, Bentleys, Lamborghinis, Aston Martins and some BMWs.The low valuations resulted when the Registry stopped doing manual assessments of luxury cars went to a system that assigned a value of $17,000 to any automobile not listed in the industry’s so-called Blue Books. For instance, a new Maserati with a sticker price of $325,000 would be valued at $17,000, so the annual excise tax would be $382 instead of $7,312.The state has sent out excise bills totaling $32 million for fiscal years 2005, 2006 and 2007 for these types of vehicles, but DeNucci’s office found that for 2005 alone, 4,674 vehicles in question are no longer registered in Massachusetts, resulting in $1.3 million in lost revenue.The Registry told DeNucci’s auditors the situation resulted from short staffing, which led to the decision to eliminate manual valuations of luxury cars.In yet a third finding, auditors cited the Registry’s failure to conduct criminal offender record information (CORI) checks for all employees to ensure the integrity of its personnel.DeNucci said the new state Registrar of Motor Vehicles will convene a summer working group to resolve the problems.