In July, the costs of registering a vehicle and getting a driver’s license will go up -- by $15 and $20 for passenger vehicles and new licenses, respectively. Wyoming drivers and vehicle owners are projected to pay an additional $45 million over the next two years, thanks to the pair of fee increases passed by the Legislature.

The fees will go to the Wyoming Department of Transportation (WYDOT) and partially offset the roughly $49 million that lawmakers have cut out of the department’s budget, said Cody Beers, a regional spokesman for WYDOT.

One bill passed by state lawmakers doubles the state fees for registering a passenger vehicle from $15 to $30, while motorcycle registration fees will rise from $12 to $25.

Similar increases will be assessed to larger vehicles. Based off registration figures from the past year, those fee hikes will raise more than $39.8 million over the two-year budget.

KTWO-AM reported that House Bill 218 was the final bill approved in the 2017 legislative session, which ended March 3. The House passed the bill on 42-18 vote, while the Senate approved it by a 17-12 margin.

Local Reps. Dan Laursen, R-Powell, Scott Court, R-Cody, Jamie Flitner, R-Greybull, and Nathan Winters, R-Thermopolis, and Sens. Ray Peterson, R-Cowley, and Hank Coe, R-Cody, voted in favor of the fee increases. Rep. David Northrup, R-Powell, voted no.

Wyoming lawmakers also approved legislation that doubles fees for obtaining a state driver’s license. For example, the charge for getting a standard license will rise from $20 to $40, while a renewal will cost $30, up from $15. That’s expected to impose another $5.2 million in fees over the coming two years, according to data from Beers.

All of Park County’s representatives and senators supported House Bill 219, which passed the Senate 18-12 and the House 46-14.

License plates and vehicle registration fees are paid at county treasurers’ offices; the state fees had not increased since 1975.

The Legislature’s Joint Appropriations Committee, which sponsored the bill, initially proposed that the fee increases take effect immediately, but “we at least got them to change it to the 1st (of July),” said Park County Treasurer Barb Poley.

“If anybody has any questions, I’d refer them to our legislators on that one,” Poley said at a March 7 Park County Commission meeting.

Gov. Matt Mead declined to sign the two bills, allowing them to become law without his signature. Mead said he didn’t want to cut WYDOT’s budget any further, calling it “a critical public service agency,” and noting that state agencies’ budgets have now been cut three times in a year. Even with the new fees, WYDOT’s overall budget “will still see a reduction of $2 million,” Mead wrote on March 14.

He also noted that the cuts and the increased fees came from the Legislature and said he hopes it leads to “[broader] longer-term discussion on government spending and the sources of our revenues.”

(Editor's note: This version removes information that suggested the overall cost of registering a vehicle was doubling; only the state's share of registration fees is doubling.)

(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)