Legislative scrutiny increases on traffic-fine revenue
By:
Mark Bowes
|
Richmond Times Dispatch
Published: February 05, 2012
HOPEWELL --
Hopewell's so-called million-dollar mile is now pushing the $2
million mark in annual revenue for the cash-strapped city of
smokestacks.
A traffic-enforcement program that runs 14 hours a day, seven days a
week along a 1- to 2-mile section of Interstate 295 through the city has
drawn the attention — and in some cases, ire — of some Virginia
legislators and officials within the Virginia State Police.
The Hopewell Sheriff's Office, whose primary function is to provide
courtroom security and serve civil-process papers, has carved out a
special unit — complete with its own dispatching system — to focus
solely on catching motorists who exceed the 70 mph speed limit as they
pass briefly through Hopewell.
Eleven sheriff's deputies, all but one of whom are part time, wrote
14,778 tickets in 2011 with $2,056,387 in assessed fines, with more than
$1.6 million of that being collected, the Sheriff's Office said.
Seventy-five percent of those cited were from out of state.
The program, which Sheriff Greg Anderson started as a one-officer
operation a year after he took office in 2006, has expanded over the
past five years in personnel and revenue generated for the city.
The $26,665 in fines assessed in 2007 grew fivefold to $160,646 in
2008, tripled to $634,655 in 2009, nearly doubled to $1.1 million in
2010 and passed the $2 million mark last year.
"It's not about the money to me," Anderson said forcefully and
repeatedly during a recent interview. The purpose, the sheriff said, is
to slow people down and save lives.
"I'm actually corny enough to think that I can send a message in that
(section of I-295) that might resonate and have an impact on people for
a long stretch of that highway," he said.
The cash pouring into city coffers as a result of the fines, Anderson
explained, "is the punishment piece" for breaking the law, and nothing
more.
"It's astonishing to me that these people still come blowing through
there at these high rates of speed," added Anderson, who takes umbrage
at the suggestion that the sums being collected appear excessive.
"Is there a cutoff?" he said pointedly.
Anderson's program, and a few others like it across
the state that have generated millions of dollars in revenue, has come
under increasing scrutiny from the Virginia General Assembly. Several
legislators say the programs are little more than speed traps that have
developed into tidy revenue streams for localities.
"I don't dispute the fact that they are enforcing the law," said
state Sen. John Watkins, R-Powhatan, who introduced legislation that
would strip the ability of localities to collect traffic-fine revenue on
interstates.
"But I have to question the pure intensity of the way they
go about it."
Watkins added: "When you got somebody out there developing a revenue
stream out of a process of law enforcement, you have to question whether
it's all being appropriately applied" and whether justice is being
served.
Watkins' bill died Jan. 18 on a 11-4 vote in the Senate Courts of
Justice Committee, as did a companion bill introduced by Del. Betsy
Carr, D-Richmond, in the House of Delegates. The latter was passed by
indefinitely on Jan. 25.
Although those measures failed, legislators also were unwilling to
enhance the ability of localities to collect traffic fines for local
purposes, as provided in a bill introduced by Sen. Thomas A. Garrett
Jr., R-Louisa.
That bill, which died in committee on a 12-3 vote, would have
strengthened current law and mandated that traffic-fine revenue be
distributed to localities when citations are written on local
ordinances, Garrett said.
"It would enshrine that concept into the Code of Virginia so that
something like Senator Watkins' bill or Delegate Carr's bill wouldn't
deny localities the revenue that are currently generated by these
things," Garrett said.
Some legislators voting against Watkins' bill said they were opposed
only because they believed it went too far. "To put a 100 percent
prohibition" on localities is too much, said Sen. Ryan T. McDougle,
R-Hanover.
"We need to make sure that we have a system in place that allows some
flexibility, but doesn't make funding the motivation for enforcing the
laws," McDougle said.
Watkins' bill would have mandated that a state statute, rather that a
local ordinance, be used in issuing citations for traffic violations on
an interstate highway or other roads receiving federal aid. That would
result in fines assessed for those offenses going to the state treasury,
rather than the localities.
Much of the money from fines and court costs assessed under state
statutes goes to the state Literary Fund, which helps finance such
things as teacher retirement costs and school construction. Watkins said
the available pool of money for those purposes has dwindled as a result
of some localities diverting traffic-fine money for their own purposes.
Watkins said during the severe economic downturn two years ago, he
was looking for alternative funding resources and checked out the state
Literary Fund. He was dismayed to find that it had dwindled to about a
third of "what it had typically had been."
"I came to find out that … legislation had gone through that allowed
these local governments to (supersede state statutes) with their local
ordinances, and they were diverting all of the money," he said.
A September 2011 report from state Auditor of Public Accounts Walter Kucharski — requested by Watkins — showed how much money is at stake.
In the fiscal year ending June 30, 2010, Virginia's courts collected
$95 million in fines and court costs from the enforcement of local
ordinances — most involving traffic laws — that parallel state statutes,
the audit shows. Localities can use that money as they see fit.
"When localities adopt ordinances that parallel state statutes and
citizens pay fines and costs, localities deposit these collections in
their general funds without any commitment to fund education, as with
the Commonwealth's Literary Fund, or their share of court operations,"
the audit states.
In addition to Hopewell and other localities, the audit shows Emporia
and neighboring Greensville County collectively assessed $5.4 million
fines and costs and collected more than $2.9 million of that amount in
fiscal 2010.
Hopewell's sheriff largely dismisses the audit, saying his critics
"got the state auditor to dress up a nice study for them that is slanted
in the state's favor."
As far as draining money away from the state literary fund, Anderson
said the state was getting virtually no revenue from traffic fines from
Hopewell's I-295 strip because few tickets were being written there
before his enforcement program.
Anderson said now-retired Hopewell General District Court Judge
Kenneth Nye advised him early in his administration that state troopers
brought him no more than 100 traffic-related cases in his 16 years on
the bench. It was Nye, the sheriff said, who approached him about
enforcing the speed limit on I-295.
"I thought it was a great idea and ran with it," Anderson said.
The operation has, at times, been source of contention between
Anderson and state police. The sheriff said he was threatened in 2009
by a state police first sergeant, who demanded that he abandon the
operation "if I know what's good for me."
Before and after that encounter, Anderson said, state police have
sent multiple units to the Hopewell I-295 strip to interfere with his
operation and block deputies from writing tickets. That led to a meeting
brokered by Del. Joseph D. Morrissey, D-Henrico, between Anderson and
state police Superintendent Steven Flaherty. No issues have arisen since
then, Anderson said, and his office remains on good terms with state
troopers.
Flaherty, through a spokeswoman, declined to discuss his department's
interactions with the Hopewell Sheriff's Office or comment on
operations such as Anderson's.
Anderson makes no secret of the program's financial
rewards for Hopewell or how his operation has grown. The department has
doubled its staff since the program began, adding one full-time and 10
part-time officers who exclusively work I-295 on a rotating basis.
The officers, fully certified by the state, work 36 to 38 hours a
week and are paid by the city from a portion of the traffic-fine
revenue. The sheriff said he hasn't benefited personally, noting he
hasn't received a raise in five years.
Anderson said about 99 percent of the speeding citations issued are
for driving more than 10 mph over the speed limit. More than 500
motorists were cited for driving 90 to 99 mph, and 19 for driving 100
mph or more.
Deputies working the strip also have arrested drug offenders,
fugitives, drunken drivers and others, but they leave traffic crashes on
the interstate to state police.
The sheriff takes great satisfaction in the defeat of the bills that
would have ended his operation, noting the heavy opposition they
received from the Virginia Sheriff's Association, the Virginia Municipal
League and the Virginia Association of Counties.
But one of Anderson's allies, the Virginia Municipal League,
described the issue in less absolute terms. R. Michael Amyx, VML's
executive director, said his group's opposition stemmed from a concern
that localities would be stripped of the revenue generated from local
traffic enforcement efforts.
However, Amyx said, a "distinct minority" of jurisdictions are taking
their enforcement efforts too far and "all of us across the state will
pay the price" if they aren't reined in. Without mentioning Hopewell,
Amyx said localities that are "out of step" need to comply with "what
the vast majority of jurisdictions do in the state."
"Bills are often produced when we got folks that are not following
normal practice," said Amyx, who added that the VML intends to contact
those localities during the off session. "And our sense is, unless those
jurisdictions make those adjustments, we'll be facing the bills again
next year."
mbowes@timesdispatch.com (804) 649-6450
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