From the Hill – Title loan bill is on state radar

This week was another very hectic week but in the end it did not seem like much was accomplished. I guess I am just anxious or impatient. It takes time to get an operation as large as the Tennessee General Assembly operating at full speed.

I was able to pass the sex offender bill out of the House Judiciary Committee with an amendment that caused every convicted sex offender, no matter what the date of conviction, to register if they meet the criteria causing them to register. In the end, this amendment will treat all sex offenders the same no matter where they were convicted and it will give parents, families, neighborhoods and local law enforcement another needed tool to keep citizens safe.

The bill will now go to the Finance Committee and hopefully to Calendar and Rules, and then the House floor. Sen. Burks will probably have her side of the bill passed within the next few days.

I have a couple of other bills I will start moving within the next week of two. One bill deals with the title loan companies. Not everyone in this state is able to go to a bank and borrow money, and when those who can?t borrow from a bank truly need money, one avenue they have is to take the family vehicle and borrow against its value.

The cap on charges for this industry is 2 percent interest per month, equaling 24 percent per year, and up to 20 percent fees per month, equaling 240 percent per year. If you add these two figures together, these borrowers are paying 264 percent interest per year.

These borrowers, for the most part, are good people in dire straits but financially they are very high risk. The current law does not allow these lenders the right to go to court to recover an outstanding balance beyond the value of the vehicle on which the loan was made.

For years these companies were not even audited by the Department of Financial Institutions, the state department that audits banks and other lenders. Two years ago, I carried legislation that caused these lenders to be regulated and audited by the Department of Financial Institutions.

The first round of audits revealed many of the lenders were charging rates higher than the 22 percent per month. The current audits have shown that all the lenders are now in compliance.

Also in this second round of audits we have discovered several of these lenders are charging rates as low as 12 percent per month. This year I have a bill that will reduce the amount of monthly fees that can be charged and cause the monthly savings to be applied to the principal of the loan.

This does two things: It saves the consumer money, and allows the consumer to retire their debt earlier than in times past.

I have another bill that will require restraints on school buses. In years past legislation dealing with seat belts on school buses have called for retro fitting and this has always caused an outcry because of additional liability, because the chassis on existing buses are not properly reinforced to hold seat belts.

The legislation Sen. Burks and I have filed calls for buses purchased after a certain date to come equipped with a restraint system approved by the National Transportation Safety Board, and after 10 years of phase-out time all buses used to transport students to school or to school-sponsored events shall be equipped with a restraint system approved by the National Transportation Safety Board. There will be a great debate about the cost, but what is the value of the life of one child. Certainly all would agree that a child is the most precious or valuable possession a mother or dad could ever have or hope to have.

The governor presented his budget this week and the budget committees will start having budget hearings. I think it will take seven or eight weeks to complete the hearings. The proposed budget, if passed as presented, will spend $27.5 billion dollars of which $13.3 billion are state tax dollars.

State Rep. Charles Curtiss serves the 43rd District, which includes roughly two-thirds of Warren County.