where does all the money from parking tickets go?

Submitted by Ok-Difference-8696 t3_yzf0ck in rva

I got a $55 ticket for parking 3 hours in a 1-hour spot on clay, because there simply wasn't any other parking nearby and I had pot of soup to carry up to my friend's apartment. this type of situation (vaguely) HAS to happen on the regular, especially in places like the fan and shockoe.

and it has to rake in tons of cash for the city government, too. does it just go into a pool to help pay for road repairs/repaving? the doomer in me says it pads the pockets of higher ups, but I figure there might be a logical explanation or allocation info out there.

edit: okay, so my main takeaway from this is to word my posts WAAAAAAY better and stick to the point as to not leave room for misinterpretation. šŸ˜…

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AlreadyShrugging t1_iwzin4t wrote

It took you 3 hours to carry soup up to your friendā€™s apartment? I get parking can be inconvenient, but what stopped you from running the soup up and then moving your car?

The city does pay for parking enforcement (salaries for parking officers, meters/equipment, etc) and I have frankly always wondered how much parking ticket revenue the city keeps after the costs of enforcing it in the first place.

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RulerOfTheRest t1_ix04tl1 wrote

The city actually contracts out parking enforcement, so 99% of the citations are done by Standard Parking Plus and their employees, the same folks that manage all of the city owned parking decks and lots. SP+ gets a fee for each ticket they write, and the city gets the rest, so it's in SP+'s best interest to write as many as possible to keep revenue up.

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Ok-Difference-8696 OP t1_ix0t74a wrote

Thanks for the info! I wonder, what's the point of contracting it out? Is it just cheaper than direct hires?

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RulerOfTheRest t1_ix0w4bn wrote

Probably the same reason folks pay people to mow their lawns: they don't want to deal with it. By contracting it out, the city doesn't have to manage all of the individual parking employees, pay for their healthcare and retirement, and really only has to deal with one point of contact when there are issues. I don't know when they switched to this model, but it's been a good 10 years at least at this point...

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Ok-Difference-8696 OP t1_iwzlozk wrote

Haha, no, I went there for a potluck to clarify that, but yeah, I did consider coming back to move it down but my partner has parked in city lots in downtown for DAYS without paying or getting a ticket, so I thought I could slide past undetected, as he did, if I didnā€™t stay overnight. Apparently that was super dumb.

Unless the officers make a lot of money, I canā€™t imagine that it costs that much just to run the system.

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Chickenmoons t1_iwzo304 wrote

Itā€™s a contracted service. Police donā€™t usually give tickets unless someone calls them about a car blocking a loading zone or handicap ramp. Tickets from police look very different from tickets you get from parking enforcement. Iā€™d be surprised if the city makes much money at all annually from parking tickets. Whatever money they do make likely just goes into the general revenue fund and is used for basic city expenses.

That said if a sign says 1 hour parking and your boyfriend says itā€™s fine to park longer I guess you learned a lesson about who to listen to.

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Ok-Difference-8696 OP t1_iwzpo91 wrote

If he'd been there he probably would've told me to move, but it definitely taught me that he's generally a luckier person than I am when it comes to not getting caught.

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AlreadyShrugging t1_ix00a2d wrote

Itā€™s expensive to employ people and have them rove around the city. It goes far beyond wages. Iā€™d be surprised if thereā€™s much parking ticket revenue left to pad anyoneā€™s pockets.

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Ok-Difference-8696 OP t1_ix016sw wrote

So I guess it just goes into making it more of a self-sufficient system then, and whatever's left as far as cost just gets supplemented with taxes?

I didn't know how many officers they have so I was just waaaay off base about the cost. My bad. šŸ˜­

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cmyk412 t1_iwzx0jh wrote

So hereā€™s the thing. Thereā€™s a sign. You ignored it and got a ticket exactly as the sign promised. Be a grownup, pay the ticket and move on. Whining about it is not a good look.

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Ok-Difference-8696 OP t1_iwzxldd wrote

I paid it within less than 48 hours. The point is that I'm curious about the allocation of excess money from fines, not that I'm trying to complain that the officer did their job.

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cmyk412 t1_ix0g024 wrote

Why do you say itā€™s excess? Get over it already. You broke the law and got caught. If you wanted to fight the fine, thatā€™s what traffic court is for. Roads are very expensive, that moneyā€™s gotta come from somewhere.

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Ok-Difference-8696 OP t1_ix0lide wrote

Excess to whatever taxes may contribute towards traffic maintenance already, is what I meant. Or maybe itā€™s estimated that a lot of the money will come from things like parking fines, to create a more self sustained system.

I was over it the moment it happened because I knew I was in the wrong, and I have no interest in fighting something as simple and clear cut as a parking fine. Like I already stated, the fact that I got a ticket was not the point of the post. Curiosity about the economics is the point of the post, which was piqued by the event of getting a ticket. I really donā€™t know how to make that any clearer.

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scholarsmateqxf7 t1_iwzu6we wrote

The money goes into a specific fund to support parking enforcement and meters. Every year they appropriate the leftovers into the General Fund where it gets budgeted with all the other taxes

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Ok-Difference-8696 OP t1_iwzuxm8 wrote

Thanks! That's what I figured, especially with costs related to running the electronic kiosks, printing passes, etc.

What's the General Fund, is that the same place that tax money goes into?

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scholarsmateqxf7 t1_iwzvss9 wrote

GF is the "one big pot" that taxes and other income gets dumped into when it doesn't already have a purpose. So if the city gets a chunk of federal or state money that can only be spent on police or sidewalks (typically through a grant), that stays separate, but taxes like property, luxury, sales, etc gets put in the GF where the mayor proposes a budget that the council approves and goes to things like police and sometimes other stuff

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Ok-Difference-8696 OP t1_iwzx88d wrote

So for city budgets, is that information usually released publicly? I guess I'm generally curious about how the fund gets allocated and what kinds of things get positively affected by the money gained from fines, parking or otherwise.

I didn't even realize there was such thing as a luxury tax!

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scholarsmateqxf7 t1_iwzy3co wrote

The budget is public, yes, I'm sure it's on the website but I'm not at my computer rn to find it. Again, it's GF, so you won't be able to say "the parking money went to education," it gets boiled into one big money soup that gets split up into budget items regardless of where the dollars originally came from.

Luxury tax is what you pay every year if you own a car, RV, jet ski, etc, you also may pay it for individual consumer goods like tampons (šŸ™„) or champagne.

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Ok-Difference-8696 OP t1_iwzz0uk wrote

Now that I know the name of what to look for, I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to find. Lol, money soup. So I guess there wouldn't be a way to tell how much goes in there from where, either, or it's a separate report?

Wait...tampons...a luxury? šŸ„²

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scholarsmateqxf7 t1_iwzzyob wrote

Funds like that typically get appropriated individually and without much fanfare. The budget MAY have a record or list of GF sources, but I haven't seen it so can't confirm. I know the parking fund is in the 5m range I believe?

Yes, tampons have historically been taxed as luxuries, along with a number of other feminine hygiene or just women-marketed products. Very cool and normal!

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justblahetoday t1_iwzqmxe wrote

Your partner says they park there all the time and donā€™t get a ticket, but then youā€™re surprised when you do? Yeah, itā€™s because they donā€™t patrol every block constantly. You got busted. Eventually people do.

And youā€™re questioning whether the parking fines ā€œpad the pockets of the higher ups??ā€ Thatā€™s not how this works. Thatā€™s not how any of this works.

Itā€™s not like every dollar of revenue aligns with a specific dollar of expenses. Cities donā€™t work that way, businesses donā€™t work that way, people donā€™t work that way.

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Ok-Difference-8696 OP t1_iwzrxop wrote

I'm not an expert, so I was just curious about how their budgeting process works when it comes to traffic-related expenses here. I'm sorry.

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Charlesinrichmond t1_ix15ll0 wrote

It's not even corruption it's even sadder. It goes to fund studies and commissions. With maybe a little bit of hiring incompetence on the side

I would take Buddy cianci type corruption any day

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