It's not like we didn't know

At:
http://www.thenewspaper.com/rlc/docs/2006/fed-tickets.pdf

Is a Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis working paper series paper titled, "Are Traffic Tickets Countercyclical?"

The abstract is:
There is anecdotal evidence that local governments use traffic tickets to generate revenue. Using panel data for North Carolina counties, we examine whether changes in local government revenue influence the number of traffic tickets issued. We find strong evidence of an asymmetric response by local governments. Specifically, positive changes in revenue have no effect on traffic tickets, but negative revenue changes increase the number of traffic tickets issued. A one percentage point decrease in revenue yields a 0.38 percentage point increase in traffic tickets. We calculate that traffic ticket revenue supplements a low percentage of local revenue losses.

Eh ... it doesn't have much effect in CA for a host of reasons. The most important reason being that we get so little from each cite followed by a cap on what local agencies can receive on these citations. The sole exception to this - or so I hear - is the red light camera cites as the city can tack on an additional fee for these devices.

In every budget session I have sat in on, when budget cuts have been discussed, increasing moving cites has never been discussed for just those reasons. However, increasing PARKING cites is always discussed as these tend to be almost pure profit for the local agency.

As I tell people when they criticize local law enforcement as writing tickets just to taise money, if all I wanted to do was raise money, I would order my officers to stop writing moving cites and issue them all parking citation books.

- Carl

I'm shocked (Ok, not really). Since law enforcement (police and parking) here are very public about the fact that they do no have "quotas", I guess we're safe. Oops, wait! I forgot about the "performance standards" that they do have which include, (amongst other things), an actual number of citations that are expected to be written. (Good thing there are no "quotas"). Anyway, anecdotal evidence supports the contention of the article, albeit not at the same percentages, and also showing a much higher correlation with parking violations than with moving violations, presumably for the same reasons Carl mentioned.

Of course, this is all about as surprising as the sun rising tomorrow, but I'm sure the anti-cop faction here will have a field day

Hmmm....I think the politician were lying when they hired a motor officer on the force last year. Part of the argument to add the guy was that his salary was expected to be "substantially offset by the increase in revenue" he was going to generate.

Lying politicians. I'm shocked.

Info edit:
Just out of curiosity, I hit google to see if I could find the impact on revenue in CA. In the first url on my search, the Berkeley city auditor's report at http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/auditor/Newspapercolumns/CityBudget.htm

About $600,000 in lost income is due to a lack of traffic enforcement (ticketing). The report ties this to delays in hiring traffic enforcement staff, and expects this revenue to rebound next year or sooner. However, projected losses from broken parking meters have increased since the six-months’ review was published, and this may also affect ticket revenue.

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Hmm...I'll search further on this curious situation of politicians being so wrong about things.

Here's some insight into NYC's "non-revenue generating" citations (note the city's profit on parking tickets): http://www.ibo.nyc.ny.us/iboreports/Fines.pdf

You Are Guilty said:

Oops, wait! I forgot about the "performance standards" that they do have which include, (amongst other things), an actual number of citations that are expected to be written. (Good thing there are no "quotas").

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They need stronger unions or defense attorneys to make more hay out of this. Out here when agencies try to cloud "quotas" with "performance objectives" the admin. usually gets its bluff called or outright sued by the employees' union.

As one union attorney told me years ago, "Variable number 'x' is still a number; if it can be quantified, it is a quota."

- Carl

tranquility said:

Hmmm....I think the politician were lying when they hired a motor officer on the force last year. Part of the argument to add the guy was that his salary was expected to be "substantially offset by the increase in revenue" he was going to generate.

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Or, as they are wont to do, they did not look at the numbers very well. They also did not likely ask the right questions about the reimbursement cap, the average number of citations, the salary, average return on fines, etc.

A dedicated traffic enforcement officer MIGHT be able to make his salary plus benefits back if he is in a small town (i.e. low pay), or a larger one where he can write 4+ MOVING (not equipment) cites in an hour each work day. But then there are days when he will NOT write cites due to weather or bad luck ... then there is overtime ... court time when not writing cites ... ad nauseum.

It is generally a bad idea to incur long term expenses (personnel) for a short term gain (additional citation revenue). Poor budgeting.

Although with vehicle release fees, if the city has a lot of suspended or unlicensed drivers, THIS can pay for the officer rather quickly of the release fee is set high enough and tows are frequent.

Hmm...I'll search further on this curious situation of politicians being so wrong about things.

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There are two primary considerations in moving violations: (1) the return to the city is approximately $22 on every $100 assessed from a base fine. And, (2), there is a statutory CAP on the amount of citation reimbursement that a jurisdiction can receive. My city never reaches its cap so we COULD go higher ... but there is a cost to doing so. By enforcing more traffic regulations, other proactive activity might have to suffer. Or, we might have to hire more officers (and there's the problem - agencies in our state are down personnel by as much as 20%) or pay overtime to write more citations. It is not an easy or certain thing to do to raise revenue by writing additional citations - hence the reason that most jurisdictions do not recommend nor encourage it.

Politicians far too often wring their hands and look at the dollar signs without considering the expenses associated with it.

EDIT: Note that the average annual SALARY of a police officer in Berkely is approximately $84,000 per year ... note that the $600,000 shortfall is due to an apparent lack of staff ... note also that the cost of the BENEFITS and other expenses associated with that police officer will equal approximately $25,000+ per officer. Thus, this shortfall might ALMOST pay for the cost of 6 officers just break even ... maybe. My guess is that Berkeley is down much more than 6 officers.

- Carl

Sorry Carl, to the study I posted regarding an increase in citations when revenue is down, you wrote:

Eh ... it doesn't have much effect in CA for a host of reasons. The most important reason being that we get so little from each cite followed by a cap on what local agencies can receive on these citations. The sole exception to this - or so I hear - is the red light camera cites as the city can tack on an additional fee for these devices.

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That is not a true statement. With little effort, anyone can find that cities are very interested in the amount of revenue they receive from traffic violations. How to increase that revenue is well worth their time. Red-light cameras, private bill collectors, increasing personnel, shifting the responsibilities to current personnel are some of the things discussed. While some things are more profitable than others, *all* are profitable in a direct way. That is, the more citations issued, the more revenue. Of course, sometimes the marginal rate isn't that good because of the costs to increase the citations. (For example hiring an additional officer. He must have a certain amount of productivity to increase revenue.) We can go around and around, but are wasting our time in this forum.

The bottom line is that it does benefit cities to increase the amount of citations written. It is so important that most cities have it as a line item in their budgets. You are going to have to dance a LOT harder to say it has little effect. Politicians love to spend money. When revenue increases--they have more money to spend. Period.

tranquility said:

That is not a true statement. With little effort, anyone can find that cities are very interested in the amount of revenue they receive from traffic violations.

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Of course. They are also concerned with vehicle registration fees, sales tax revenues, sewer rate fees, etc. Being interested in it does NOT make it an effective method of increasing tax revenue.

Red-light cameras, private bill collectors, increasing personnel, shifting the responsibilities to current personnel are some of the things discussed.

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Red-light cameras are, as I said, one of the apparent exceptions to the rule. How they get around the cap - IF they get around the cap, I do not know. I have never had to deal with that particular issue.

Private bill collectors are entirely irrelevent to moving citations as the money is distributed to the cities from the state and NOT through independent collections. There is discussion of the pros and cons of private collections for parking citations or for enforcement of ordinance violations, but not for traffic citations since these are not handled locally.

And shifting responsibilities is a nice theoretical exercise that rarely works in the real world. Order officers to write more cites, and you DO find a drop in other areas ... it's a fact of life. There are only so many hours in a day, and traffic enforcement puts a significant dent in them. In busy agencies, there is little discretionary time for writing citations so they have to resort to specialized traffic units. Unfortunately, as calls for service rise and staffing gets low, traffic enforcement units get broken up so that officers can respond to calls for service or handle other higher priority issues.

In a town like mine where there is a good deal of discretionary time, officers spend more of it writing reports. We write a good number of citations, but we COULD do more. We don't, because I'd prefer my officers not write reports on overtime. So, instead of writing tickets and then costing me more in overtime than I could possibly gain in revenue, I would rather they write their reports and complete investigations in a timely manner.

Additionally, if you attend a budget meeting you will hear a LOT of things being "discussed". This does not mean that they are realistic ideas.

While some things are more profitable than others, *all* are profitable in a direct way. That is, the more citations issued, the more revenue. Of course, sometimes the marginal rate isn't that good because of the costs to increase the citations.

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Considering I DO law enforcement budegting and have participated in several years of budget hearings (and have formal training and education in this area), I would think that I have a pretty good grasp on this subject.

The bottom line is that it does benefit cities to increase the amount of citations written.

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Well ... yeah ... it also benefits them to get a federal grant. But both have associated costs and strings that have to be factored in to the equation. I could discuss the foibles and risks of the federal COPS grants and why some agencies choose not to obtain them, and also why the Clinton era police hiring grants have caused a lot of harm, but this would be venturing far afield.

Looking only at the dollars you receive without considering the associated expenses and liabilities is foolhardy and I would be afraid to work for or live in a city that made choices in this manner. Considering an idea - even a hair-brained or poorly thought out one - is not a bad thing because very often some good thoughts come from the consideration.

Proper budgeting MUST include these considerations. ANY idea that might make money is considered, but many are rejected. Some ideas just are not practical. If you ask law enforcement executives (the ones who must decide where to allocate resources) they will generally NOT be recommending an increase in citations to enhance revenues since they are the ones that have to actually move the beans around and understand the reasons why this might be a bad idea.

Politicians love to spend money. When revenue increases--they have more money to spend. Period.

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Unfortunately, politicians tend to get bitten in the ass by half-baked schemes and then they point the finger of blame at the poor administrator who was unable to carry out their unrealistic vision.

You would either laugh or cry at many of the proposed schemes that have been proposed over the years to raise money by police departments.

The bottom line remains that in CA law enforcement executives do not realistically consider increased citations when discussing ways to expand their bottom line.

- Carl

The bottom line remains that in CA law enforcement executives do not realistically consider increased citations when discussing ways to expand their bottom line.

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Everyone else has been talking about the relationship between when there is a government decline in revenues there is an increase in ticketing. I guess we can discuss this entirely new proposition you state here, but I know the circles we will go around to get to clarity so will decline.

It would be extraordinarily interesting to discover what mechanisms are behind the relationship. It would be interesting to see if the relationship discovered by the study (which most everyone seemed to already know in their gut) is the same in CA. You said it could not be the same here as cities don't see the revenue from such things. That is clearly not the case. I will hold in abeyance the question regarding if the study is true in CA as well as the area covered until we receive more data. I will take under advisement that the police have nothing to do with that difference if the data in CA comport with the study. I will ponder deeply as to what the causation could be if the advisement is true.

tranquility said:

Everyone else has been talking about the relationship between when there is a government decline in revenues there is an increase in ticketing.

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I don't know who "everyone else" might be, but it's certainly not law enforcement execs in CA. And the study you linked did not appear to mention California agencies at all.

It would be extraordinarily interesting to discover what mechanisms are behind the relationship.

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That would depend on the state being discussed.

It would be interesting to see if the relationship discovered by the study (which most everyone seemed to already know in their gut) is the same in CA.

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Having worked in areas where the agency has taken financial hits, I can honestly say that the order has NEVER gone out to write more citations for anything but specific targeted enforcement in high priority areas (i.e. areas where there had been a series of collisions or other high-profile events causing a safety concern or a political stink).

As with many studies, if the hypothesis is that cites go up as money goes down, then you just might prove it. However, in CA I just don't think it's going to happen ... unless a Chief gets pressed into doing it by the council, or the Chief missed the budgeting portion of his Executive POST Certification courses.

You said it could not be the same here as cities don't see the revenue from such things. That is clearly not the case.

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I don't know what "clearly" you are refering to. It is NOT a profiable venture for police departments to engage in. There may be isolated examples, but by and large it is not done for ahost of reasons.

One would think that if it WERE beneficial, SOMEWHERE in the myriad of law enforcement management courses I have attended for the past 5 years they would have suggested it. I cannot imagine that accountants and learned budgetary officials would have missed this supposed gold mine for so many years.

Again, this is an issue I deal with personally. If I thought for one moment that I could have a significant positive impact on my budget by increasing moving citations, I might consider it. But, since I don't live in a vacuum, it does not have that positive impact. Not to mention the negative impact on calls for service, public relations, overtime, etc. Overall I get more bang for my buck with a parking enforcement officer than with a police officer issuing moving citations. In FACT, my city gains MORE money from a $27 parking ticket than from a $125 moving violation! And, the parking cite takes less time and does not require court overtime! It's a true winner!

So, you WILL see parking enforcement realistically discussed and implemented by law enforcement execs as a way to make money, but not moving cites. At least not seriously.

- Carl