For someone preaching about the importance of understanding government, I'm surprised that you're not aware that parking tickets are actually handed out here by parking enforcement officers, not police.
Also, parking ticket appeals are handled through the Traffic and Parking Dept., not a court. According to the FY10 budget (linked above), the total increase in the T&P budget (excluding ordinance maintenance) between FY09 and FY10 is $285,656 compared with the expected revenue gain from parking tickets of approx $1.5 million. Doesn't look like the costs even came close to wiping out the gains.
As far as guaranteeing the expected revenue increase, the city has already changed its parking policies and budgeted for additional personnel. Clearly, the City is being proactive about this.
I'm sure you are correct that it is expensive for the City to deal with appeals. That just means there's an incentive to issue tickets in ways that do not trigger appeals, and there's a disincentive for making the appeals process easy to use. I have no experience with the appeals process, I'm just talking about the economics of this here.
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Date: 2009-08-27 07:13 pm (UTC)Also, parking ticket appeals are handled through the Traffic and Parking Dept., not a court. According to the FY10 budget (linked above), the total increase in the T&P budget (excluding ordinance maintenance) between FY09 and FY10 is $285,656 compared with the expected revenue gain from parking tickets of approx $1.5 million. Doesn't look like the costs even came close to wiping out the gains.
As far as guaranteeing the expected revenue increase, the city has already changed its parking policies and budgeted for additional personnel. Clearly, the City is being proactive about this.
I'm sure you are correct that it is expensive for the City to deal with appeals. That just means there's an incentive to issue tickets in ways that do not trigger appeals, and there's a disincentive for making the appeals process easy to use. I have no experience with the appeals process, I'm just talking about the economics of this here.