Man, Was My Info Wrong!
CSP and ABATE testimony at the hearing. Thanks to Sen. Byron Pelton who came over to me and offered to get a shot from in front of the speakers. How nice!
Wow, did I ever get things wrong. I’m talking about this supposed bill to sunset Colorado’s MOST program and I just got home from the first hearing.
Just as the committee was getting going on another bill that preceded the MOST bill I was sitting with Larry, the state coordinator for ABATE of Colorado, and he handed me the text of the remarks he intended to make to the committee. I was struck by one sentence:
Per the Sunset Review for 2024 the MOST program has been recommended that this continues for 9 more years.
OK, there’s a little grammatical mix-up in there but you get the picture. I asked Larry if the recommendation was to continue MOST and he said yes.
Wow. Oh wow. That’s not what I’ve been telling you. Or anyone I talked to. What’s the deal?
I first got wind of this when I was talking with Stump on December 31 at the Last Brass Monkey Run. I would swear he told me the recommendation was to sunset MOST, but not altogether, just for nine years. And I asked him, for nine years? I thought when a program got sunset it was over, done with, fini. But he said no, it was usually for three years but in this case it’s for nine.
Clearly I misunderstood something Stump said and also as clearly he misheard something I said. My new understanding makes a whole heck of a lot more sense.
So the gist of it all is that they are recommending continuing MOST but ABATE is pushing to have changes made, to get it back more to its original configuration where the money we pay in on license renewals goes to reduce the cost of training for the students. And that issue was raised in the hearing. One senator asked if there was money stashed away for the program that could support this sort of subsidy and Larry told him absolutely yes, there’s more than $1 million sitting there in the account.
The bill was approved by the committee so now I believe it goes on to further development. As in, it does not appear there even is a bill yet, that remains to be written. And now the effort will be to make revisions in the program. That should be interesting.
Meanwhile, here’s another thing Larry told me that was news to me. I had told him that if the program can’t be redirected to subsidizing students taking riding courses then perhaps MOST should be killed. What he told me is that as of about five years ago, the Department of Motor Vehicles no longer administers driving tests when people come in for new licenses. Whether you want a license to drive a car or to ride a motorcycle, you have to go to a third organization to do the driving test. So if MOST went away there would be no system for those third-party trainers/testers to be certified to pass people on their driving tests.
Easy to see why the committee voted unanimously to continue MOST. Crazy that DMV no longer administers driving tests. Great for companies offering driver training.
So fine. Now we sit back and wait to see what in included in the bill when it gets written.
Biker Quote for Today
As addictive as cocaine and twice as expensive.
Tags: Colorado MOST program, MOST, MOST program
