DMV keeps 40 percent of organ donation fees

March 27, 2010

California residents have become used to seeing the question asked on state driver’s license applications at the DMV: Are you willing to give $2 for the promotion of organ donations? Are you willing to proudly display that pink “I am a donor” dot on your driver’s license?

But how much of that $2 actually goes to organ donation and how much is kept by the DMV? That seems to be the larger question being asked lately. [Contra Costa Times]

It turns out, based on data from the DMV and the state Department of Finance, that Sacramento keeps 80 cents from every $2 donation made–that’s 40 percent, or nearly $300,000 a year that the DMV gets for what they call “an administrative fee.” In return, the DMV processes the contributions, collects donor information, and prints the pink donor dots.

The DMV gets another $803,000 annually from the state budget to run the donor program.

Do the math. For the last four years, the DMV has spent $3.19 for every California driver who donated $2.

The remaining $1.20 goes to a nonprofit consortium that actually operates the Donate Life California Organ and Tissue Donor Registry.

Legislators created the administrative fee back in 2005 when the partnership between the DMV and the consortium was first created.

A spokesperson for Governor Schwarzenegger’s office said they are investigating.