INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — The Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) has stopped the distribution of specialty license plates for three organizations, including the Indiana 4-H Foundation, because the groups violated the rules of the program, a BMV spokesman said.

The organizations had their participation in the state’s Special Group Recognition License Plate Program suspended because each offered low-numbered plates for unauthorized financial contributions, Dennis L. Rosebrough said. License plates were also suspended for the Indiana Youth Group and Greenways Foundation.

Hoosiers who currently have the license tags will be able to renew them for 2012, he added.

The BMV found that each group posted instructions on their websites describing how potential purchasers could get lower-numbered license plates by contributing certain dollar amounts, Rosebrough explained.

“The websites (of the three organizations) had very specific language about dollar amounts of contributions and plate numbers contributors could get,” he noted. “The higher the contribution, the lower the plate number you could get. That was the language we found on those three sites. That’s why those plates were suspended.”

The state is in the process of writing contracts for each organization that has a specialty plate, though not every organization is currently under such a contract, he explained. But for those not yet under a contract, the Indiana Administrative Code bans the selling of plates for specific contribution levels, he stated.

After concerns were raised about the selling of low plate numbers for the new Indiana youth plate, the BMV checked the websites of the rest of the organizations that participate in the program to see if they had similar language offering low numbers, Rosebrough said. The three types of plates were suspended March 16.

As a courtesy to sponsoring organizations, those groups are allowed to assign the first 100 plates, Rosebrough explained. A contributor must have a letter of authorization from the organization in order to receive the plate from the BMV.

Specialty plates cost $40 more than regular plates. The sponsoring group receives $25 per plate and the BMV gets $15.

Last year, 1,807 Indiana 4-H Foundation plates were sold, according to BMV figures. In 2011, the state sold more than 420,000 specialty plates representing 81 organizations. The biggest sellers last year were plates for Indiana University (48,282) and the Heritage Trust (48,192).

Many Hoosiers seem to enjoy having low-numbered plates, noted Rosebrough, who has been with the BMV six years. “I had no appreciation for how passionate people are about license plates. I don’t know the psychology. Maybe it’s an opportunity to make a personal statement,” he said.

The importance of lower numbers could go back to the days when political parties ran the license branches, he added. In those days, a lower-numbered plate meant something – that the owner was somebody – he said.

In an interview with Farm World published in 2009, Indiana 4-H Foundation Executive Director Shelly Bingle-Coffman said funds from the sale of the plates were used to send Indiana delegates to events such as the National 4-H Conference and the National 4-H Collegiate Conference. The funds were also used to help support the state junior leader conference, 4-H roundup and adult leader recognition.

The Indiana 4-H Foundation has had a specialty plate since 1996. Neither Bingle-Coffman nor Christy Denault, president of the Indiana 4-H Foundation board of directors, responded to requests for interviews about the license plate suspension.

While current owners of the suspended tags may continue to renew them, the BMV won’t decide on the future of the specialty plate program until after a study is completed this summer by the state legislature, Rosebrough stated.

The legislature is going to review the entire specialty plate program and may want to make changes, he said, adding he would be surprised if the program is discontinued.