April 7, 2017

Revenue Stream Is No Excuse for Citation Abuse

For many municipalities, tickets and fines make up an alarming percentage of revenue.

For many municipalities, tickets and fines make up an alarming percentage of revenue — up to 90% in some instances. That’s the startling finding by C. Jarrett Dieterle, who examines the issue of “Citation Nation” in the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal. “Washington, D.C. collects more than $200 per-capita in annual law-enforcement-related fees and has floated proposals to increase certain traffic penalties to $1,000,” Dieterle unnervingly notes. Moreover, nine in 10 mayors are exploring alternative revenue streams. You can imagine how ticket revenue must tempt mayors like candy does a child. As Dieterle writes, “The attractiveness of tickets and fines as revenue generators is underscored by the fact that most people who receive tickets simply pay the fine and move on.” Here’s how the appeal plays out policy-wise:

> In 2006, Nashville Mayor Bill Purcell worked a 33 percent increase in traffic-ticket revenue into the city’s proposed budget: the revenue boost was intended to help the city spend an extra $60 million on various projects and initiatives. Similarly, a 2011 bill introduced in the South Carolina Legislature attracted widespread attention for proposing to direct money from certain traffic tickets into the state’s general fund. Traffic tickets issued by police officers are not the only type of fine that can be used for revenue generation. Red-light and speeding cameras long have been criticized for their revenue-generating functions, and some municipalities have turned to ordinance violations to gin up more revenue. Fees for particular government services and operations have gained popularity as well. Many court systems have raised court fees for hearings, and some municipalities have even introduced trash and ambulance fees. The city of Winter Haven, Florida, for example, introduced an accident-response fee, leading to shock among residents when they began receiving $300 bills in the mail weeks after an ambulance was called. And in Northwoods, Missouri, residents were told that they either had to begin paying a $20 trash pickup fee or risk the possibility of layoffs in the city police department.

Suffice it to say, this is alarming and very legally questionable. Infusing ticket revenue into a city budget means law enforcement is compelled to focus more on quotas than well-being, as demonstrated in these statistics: “In St. Ann, a suburb of St. Louis, the issuance of speeding tickets increased almost threefold in the span of five years — all at a time when the local population was falling. Similarly, New Miami Village, Ohio, with a population of just over 2,000, issued 45,000 tickets in a 15-month span before a judge intervened and ordered a portion of the citation revenue returned to local citizens.” And the problem is growing nationwide, particularly among financially stressed municipalities looking to reverse the balance sheet’s red ink. But unlike property taxes — another constitutionally dubious tax, but we digress — the revenue from tickets isn’t stable. The other problem is that local leaders are free to spend that money as they see fit. Now would be a good time for Republican governors — who control the majority of the states — to show leadership by clamping down on this abuse of power.

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.