(A) The Department of Motor Vehicles may issue special motor vehicle license plates to owners of private passenger motor vehicles as defined in Section 56-3-630 registered in their names, which may have imprinted on the plate an emblem, a seal, or other symbol the department considers appropriate to a certified service fraternity or sorority. A fraternity or sorority may submit to the department for its approval the emblem, seal, or other symbol it desires to be used for its respective special license plate. Before a design is approved, however, the organization must submit to the department written authorization for the use of any copyrighted or registered logo, trademark, or design. A fraternity or sorority also may request a change in the emblem, seal, or other symbol once the existing supply has been exhausted. The fee for this special license plate is seventy dollars every two years in addition to the regular motor vehicle license fee set forth in Article 5, Chapter 3 of this title. This special license plate must be of the same size and general design of regular motor vehicle license plates. The special license plates must be issued or revalidated for a biennial period which expires twenty-four months from the month they are issued.

(B) The fees collected pursuant to this section must be distributed to a separate fund for each of the respective fraternities or sororities. Each fund must be administered by the fraternity or sorority and may be used for academic scholarships, or to fund programs that send boys and girls who are at least eight years old and not more than sixteen years old to summer camp, or both. Funds collected for each fraternity or sorority must be deposited in an account designated by the fraternity or sorority. The distribution is forty dollars to the respective fund and thirty dollars placed by the Comptroller General into the State Highway Fund as established by Section 57-11-20, to be distributed as provided in Section 11-43-167.

(C) Before the Department of Motor Vehicles produces and distributes a special license plate pursuant to this section, it must receive:

(1) four hundred prepaid applications for the special license plate or a deposit of four thousand dollars from the individual or organization seeking issuance of the license plate. If a deposit of four thousand dollars is made by an individual or organization pursuant to this section, the department must refund the four thousand dollars once an equivalent amount of license plate fees is collected for that organization's license plate. If the equivalent amount is not collected within four years of the first issuance of the license plate, then the department must retain the deposit; and

(2) a plan to market the sale of the special license plate which must be approved by the department.

(D) If the department receives less than three hundred biennial applications and renewals for a particular special license plate, it shall not produce additional special license plates in that series. The department shall continue to issue special license plates of that series until the existing inventory is exhausted.

HISTORY: 1999 Act No. 63, Section 11; 2007 Act No. 90, Section 1, eff June 14, 2007; 2008 Act No. 347, Section 28, eff June 16, 2008; 2016 Act No. 275 (S.1258), Section 56, eff July 1, 2016.