Florida: City Considers Cameras as Ticket Quota Alternative

The Newspaper
by The Newspaper

The Tampa, Florida city council tomorrow will consider adopting a contract granting American Traffic Solutions (ATS) the right to issue $158 tickets at intersections. At a meeting last month, half of the council’s members supported installation while the other half opposed — forcing the idea to be reconsidered at the upcoming meeting where a member absent from the last meeting is expected to cast the deciding vote. Opponents suggested the cameras had little to do with safety.

“I’m still trying to get my arms around the idea that this is a money-making (venture to) help bring in revenues for the police officers,” Councilman Curtis Stokes said. “Again it’s on the backs of 40 percent of those addresses you gave are minority neighborhoods, and I can’t support cameras when it’s an extra tax.”

Tampa officials desperately need new sources of revenue to make up for losses in property tax from the housing market’s collapse. The city faces a $20 million deficit, and automated ticketing machines represent a far better deal for the municipal coffers than officer-generated traffic tickets which are, in their own way, a source of financial pressure on the city. According to a Tampa Police Department email, officers were expected to meet an average number of tickets issued — “144 yearly, 48 quarterly, 12 monthly,” Lieutenant Michael Baumaister explained in August 2005.

Officers who issued these tickets would then attend traffic court, frequently while off-duty to generate overtime pay that usually amounts to between $72 and $130 per hearing, while the city’s share of each ticket is frequently as little as $20 to $25 — when the tickets are actually paid. In 2009, Tampa police wrote 24,644 speeding tickets. Of these, only 28 percent were actually paid in full. Judges withheld judgment, cut deals or dismissed the rest. Yet costs have skyrocketed.

In 2004, Tampa’s former mayor successfully lobbied for a state law that allowed overtime to be part of the calculation of an officer’s salary when determining pension benefits. That means an officer near retirement might be paid for attending one ticket hearing year-after-year for more the rest of his life. This benefit comes on top of a 1999 law that funded pensions from each traffic ticket issued that caused a driver’s insurance rates to rise.

“It’s a tax on the increase of the premium,” then-Tampa Police Chief Stephen Hogue said in a 2005 deposition. “My understanding of it is that it’s based on the premiums that are written in a jurisdiction…”

After the insurance funding mechanism was enacted in 1999, the number of tickets issued skyrocketed. Contributions that averaged a steady $2.2 million a year from 1997 through 1999 jumped to a high of $3.5 million in 2006.

[Courtesy: Thenewspaper.com]

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  • Sundowner Sundowner on Apr 06, 2011

    IF Tampa cops have nothing better to do all day than issue a minimum number of tickets, which don't even cover the salary and pension they collect, maybe the right answer here is to shed a few cops.

  • Greg Locock Greg Locock on Apr 06, 2011

    Well at least they are honest about their motives. So, when do you get to vote these goons out?

  • 1995 SC At least you can still get one. There isn't much for Ford folks to be happy about nowadays, but the existence of the Mustang and the fact that the lessons from back in the 90s when Ford tried to kill it and replace it with the then flavor of the day seem to have been learned (the only lessons they seem to remember) are a win not only for Ford folks but for car people in general. One day my Super Coupe will pop its headgaskets (I know it will...I read it on the Internet). I hope I will still be physically up to dropping the supercharged Terminator Cobra motor into it. in all seriousness, The Mustang is a.win for car guys.
  • Lorenzo Heh. The major powers, military or economic, set up these regulators for the smaller countries - the big guys do what they want, and always have. Are the Chinese that unaware?
  • Lorenzo The original 4-Runner, by its very name, promised something different in the future. What happened?
  • Lorenzo At my age, excitement is dangerous. one thing to note: the older models being displayed are more stylish than their current versions, and the old Subaru Forester looks more utilitarian than the current version. I thought the annual model change was dead.
  • Lorenzo Well, it was never an off-roader, much less a military vehicle, so let the people with too much money play make believe.
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