The legislature today agreed to repeal the $15 increase in the ATV registration fee. Any person who paid the additional fee will be entitled to an extension of their registration for one year. The increased fee was supposed to fund publicly operated trails that would have been monitored and regulated by the state.

The license renewal fee, which is paid annually, will return to its original rate of ten dollars. As it stands, people who paid the increase will only receive 66 percent of the money they paid.

This imbalance has many lawmakers questioning the logic behind the repeal.

“The refund does not make sense,” said Assemblyman Joe Giglio (R-Gowanda). “If the state is going to return the money to people who paid for the increase, they should return the whole amount since none of the money in the increase was used for ATV riders.”

The legislature also rejected the governor’s $850,000 proposal for state run and monitored ATV trails. Currently in New York there are not state operated ATV trails. The Department of Motor Vehicles, the state agency that collects the ATV license fees, does not provide any trail maintenance, development, or enforcement.

“The whole situation is unfair to people who wanted to use their ATVs through the scenic trails that New York offers,” Giglio said.

The Assembly minority is calling for the ten dollar fee to be repealed altogether. “The state should not be charging people for a service it does not provide,” said Giglio.