Please explain exactly how "general fund subsidy" correlates to DMV vehicle fees. I may have miss something.
A portion of the Vehicle Registration Renewal fees which DMV collects annually is a disguised form of property taxes. These in-lieu-of property taxes are called the vehicle license fee or VLF. The state collects the VLFs and redistributes them to the counties where the vehicles are parked/garaged/stored, not necessarily the address of the registered owner. That's real money.
The VLF rate for vehicles in California hasn't changed for many many years. It's still 2% of the vehicle's assessed valued, established by the state, applied equally in all counties. The registered owner of a $50K sedan has a $1K VLF obligation regardless, of the county in which the car is registered or stored.
Of that $1K in VLFs collected annually from the registered owner, about 40% is eventually returned to the county in which the car was stored. That's $400 in real money. If the registered owner only payed a $200 VLF, because of the Austrian's largess, where did the other $200 come from? It came from the General Fund as a subsidy of the registered owner's tax responsibility.
Where did the monies in the General Fund come from? From income, sales and valued added taxes paid by the vehicle's owner.
The loop is closed. The goose is screwed.