Registration of rigs in Arkansas a pain; carriers seek change

None of Arkansas' four publicly traded trucking companies register their vehicles in Arkansas.

The reason isn't a lack of state pride. It's an inconvenient registration system.

The trucking industry is hoping to tackle the issue during the next legislative session with a measure designed to make it easier for trucking companies to register in the state. More than 4,800 trucking companies are headquartered in Arkansas.

Currently, a person who opens a trucking company in Arkansas must show up in person to register the trucks.

Any additional vehicles must be registered in person or by mail, with the option to do some steps online. However, other states have adopted software capabilities that can handle the entire process online and allow a trucking company owner to print vehicle registrations instantaneously.

Larger companies with terminals in other states have often opted to use those states' more user-friendly systems.

"Trucking companies have trucks cycling in and out, so they have multiple vehicles they're trying to register, submit documents for, receive documents for," said Shannon Newton, president of the Arkansas Trucking Association. "The automated processes in other states provides efficiencies for those companies that the current Arkansas system is not capable of providing."

"It's one thing to tag a company with 50-100 trucks, but it's quite another to tag 3,000," said Butch Rice, president and CEO of Stallion Transportation Group in Beebe. "It's honestly embarrassing that Arkansas couldn't accommodate it so that other companies are having to go to other states."

"We've registered in Arkansas for a long time, but it's really not a hassle for us since we're only 30 miles from Little Rock," he said. "For somebody else, it probably would be a hassle."

Tony Langley, director of safety at ComStar Enterprises Inc. in Springdale, said his company stays organized to avoid any problems.

"I can understand for the companies with thousands of trucks and for new companies, but we just did more registrations last month by mail, and we had no problems," Langley said.

Carriers registered in Oklahoma or Indiana, for example, are able to register trucks online, print out tags and start driving that day. Carriers tagged in Arkansas must wait for documents to arrive in the mail, which Newton called "an inefficiency and a disadvantage that we're trying to alleviate."

"The first priority is my members who are not receiving the same level of service as companies registering in other states," she said.

Historically, she said, it was a cost issue because Arkansas used to charge sales tax on registrations, unlike other states.

In a 1989 article in the Arkansas Gazette, Dean Cannon, then-owner of Cannon Express in Springdale, said, "You can't afford the luxury of being registered in Arkansas."

In 2013, the association successfully removed the fee. "We passed the legislation, and we wondered why no one is coming back," Newton said.

Newton explained that even though Arkansas now has the cheapest registration fees of any states she has looked at, larger Arkansas-headquartered companies "are not coming back because the procedures are so laborious they are not going to uproot their processes and relationships."

The number of trucks registering out of state doesn't lead to a significant amount of lost revenue. An agreement among states apportions proceeds from registration fees depending on the number of miles a truck logs in a state no matter where it was registered.

While the cost issue isn't a factor, registering in Arkansas is unfair to smaller carriers who have no choice but to register here, Newton said. The association and others in the industry have been working with the Department of Finance and Administration, which handles the process, to come up with proposed improvements to the existing, 7-year-old software.

"To upgrade any system, there will be some cost involved. We want to minimize that as much as possible and still give the trucking companies the service they are looking for," said Walter Anger, assistant commissioner of revenue over operations and administration at the department.

"If the trucking industry wants some things in the system and the money is available for them, we will make it happen," he said.

According to Newton, "We believe that this is a bona fide industry that deserves an improved level of service the state should provide. It's just a function of 'at what cost?'"

The issue now will depend on lawmakers' decision to fund the project in the new year.

"I commend the state on what they've done in the past year on working through the process, looking at other states like Illinois and Indiana and how they do it," Rice said.

Newton estimated that an upgrade to the entire system will cost $1.4 million.

"Ultimately, we'll need support of the lawmakers and department officials," she said. "In most recent meetings, it seems to make more sense to invest in a more robust platform that would provide benefits across the entire system."

SundayMonday Business on 12/25/2016

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