Plan to increase driver’s license fee may hit stall

A Senate-endorsed plan to raise the fee for driver’s licenses by five bucks may run into a stumbling block in the House. The extra money raised would be used on a new computer system for the D-O-T but Representative Bill Dix, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, says he’s reluctant to quickly endorse a fee increase without seeing if there are other ways to finance the system. Dix says there’s strong agreement that the D-O-T needs a new computer system, but now the battle becomes finding the money to do it. D-O-T officials say their computer system’s so old, the agency’s computer experts spend all their time just keeping it up and running and have no time to make changes in the software.