Ever wonder where all the money goes that students, faculty andstaff pay when they receive a parking ticket? How about the moneyfrom other tickets written by University Police officers?
Last year, approximately 1,100 traffic tickets, 315 minor inpossessions of alcohol tickets, 95 possessions of marijuana ticketsand 23 miscellaneous tickets were written by University Police.However, the school does not receive money from those tickets,Lieutenant Charles Schwoerke said.
State law determines where the revenue goes for those tickets. Itis divided between the state general fund, the training fund forpolice officers the state provides, San Diego County and the courtsystem, he said.
Parking tickets, however, are another story.
The revenue from parking citations and violations from the parkinglots varies anywhere from about $500,000 to $1 million a year, LindaStewart, assistant vice president of business and financial affairs,said.
“By law, we are allowed to use the money for specific purposes,”Stewart said. According to the California Education Code, the moneyreceived from parking fines and forfeitures can only be used in twocategories — alternate modes of transportation and citationadministration.
Alternate modes of transportation programs include vanpools,building new bike lanes or money spent in support of modes oftransportation other than driving a car to school.
Money also goes to citation administration, which refers to theprocess parking tickets go through after they have been issued.
Activities involved in the parking ticket process includecollecting revenues, mailing follow-up ticket information, collectionactivity, appeals and hearings related to tickets, Stewart said.
Up to 50 percent of the money collected can be used for thepurpose of citation administration, Stewart said. The other 50percent can be used for alternate modes of transportation.
Money used from parking violations are allocated for such thingsas paying the company that tracks information on tickets issued. Thatcompany also provides reports and collects the money from thetickets, Stewart said.
If someone appeals a ticket and a hearing is held, money forcitation administration could be spent on that, she said.
“The parking enforcement officers that patrol the lots andactually issue the citations cannot be paid for out of this money bylaw,” Stewart said.
She said an example of how money for alternate modes oftransportation could be spent is the subsidies that the universitygives to help with the cost of bus passes.
The college pass, a bus that allows students to ride the bus for afull semester, is $107. The total cost for this pass is much more,but it’s subsidized by the university and the Metropolitan TransitDevelopment Board, Stewart said.
“We also have an employee vanpool program, and alternate modes ofmoney can go to provide partial cost in support of the employeevanpool,” Stewart said.
On a side note — Mike Smoger, assistant director of publicsafety, said there is no minimum, maximum or ticket quota that theparking officers must fill.
The same pertains to police officers.
Smoger said there are four full-time staff members that areparking officers, but they do a lot of other things other than writeparking citations. He said one of their primary jobs is parkingenforcement.
There are no parking officers who just write tickets, Smoger said.When they are enforcing parking rules, they are not told to go tospecific locations at specific times, he said.
“It is against the law for officers to fill a quota,” Schwoerkesaid.
