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The Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) allegedly made millions by charging people money to do nothing, according to NBC 4 News.
According to a lawsuit, the BMV made the money by charging Ohioans a $1.50 lamination fee for driver's licenses, despite the fact its registrars weren't making cards on-site and therefore weren't laminating anything. The BMV charged 3,423,315 for lamination fees, which means that Ohioans altogether payed an extra $5,134,972.50 to the Ohio BMV.
Before July 2018, anyone who wanted a driver's license, permit or ID could to the the BMV and a worker would create, print, laminate and immediately give it to the customer. To make up the cost for doing this, the BMV charged $1.50 for a lamination fee. On July 2, 2018, the BMV started outsourcing this work and registrars stopped making cards on-site. This is where the lawsuit flagged an issue.
"Despite the fact that the procedures changed as of July 2, 2018, the legislation authorizing the collection of the lamination fee did not change until July 3, 2019 and deputy registrars continued to collect the $1.50 lamination fee per Ohio Credential issues even though they were no longer performing the services for which the lamination fee was meant to compensate them," according to the lawsuit.
The Ohio BMV denied the allegations in the lawsuit, but the court has not yet ruled in either party's favor.