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Motorists must buy or renew specialty tags 8,000 times over five years or the tags are discontinued.
By ALISA ULFERTS, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published May 22, 2002
TALLAHASSEE -- At a time when Girl Scouts are hungry for adult leaders, troops across the state are losing the extra cash they earned from Girl Scout license plates.
It seems the same people who have lost interest in leading Girl Scout troops have not worked up enough interest in buying the specialty tags, which have been discontinued because of lack of sales, state officials said Tuesday.
"I was pretty disappointed in that myself," said Fred Dickinson, director of the state Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, who announced the cut to Gov. Jeb Bush and the Cabinet.
People must buy or renew specialty tags 8,000 times over five years or the tags are discontinued. The Girl Scouts tags never sold enough to survive the five-year cutoff, falling short by fewer than 400 tags. Most of the money the tags generated came from renewals; just 2,302 tags were sold.
For the Girl Scouts of the Suncoast Council, that's more than $8,000 a year.
"The Tampa Bay area and Orlando sold the most tags. But we weren't able to pull it together for the rest of the state," said Jody Johnston, executive director of the council.
The Girl Scouts' loss comes as the organization struggles to attract both leaders for its troops and older girls to its programs. The Boy Scout license tag, meanwhile, is still alive.
"I don't know that there are any conclusions that can be drawn from that," said Johnston, adding that overall membership in her council is at a record level with a waiting list of approximately 4,000 girls.
John Cabeza, the Scout executive for the Boy Scouts West Central Florida Council, said the only explanation he has for why the boys outsold the girls was sheer size. Cabeza's council has 20,000 boys in Pasco and Pinellas counties. Johnston's council has 21,000 girls in Pinellas, Hillsborough, Pasco and Hernando counties.
"Historically, I think, the Boy Scout program has been larger than the Girl Scouts," Cabeza said.
The Girl Scouts have launched a program designed to keep teenage girls in the group, but leaders are scarce and when no volunteers can be found they are paid, Johnston said. More girls continue to flock to the program, the loss of the tag notwithstanding, Johnston said.
"What it means is our image is not very clear to people," Johnston said. "We think we're the best kept secret in town."
But the same might be said of the Tampa Bay Storm and the Orlando Predators, two arena football teams whose specialty tags also were discontinued for lack of sales.