Problems with unpaid parking tickets are nothing new in Baton Rouge, says Business Report Editor Stephanie Riegel in her latest column.
“From time to time, various media outlets report on the millions of dollars in unpaid tickets that go uncollected,” she writes. “Everyone gets upset. Council members vow to do something. New procedures are put in place … and then, well, nothing much changes.”
Consider the current situation, Riegel says. According to the Clerk of City Court, which is the repository of statistics on the subject, the city has a backlog of nearly 87,000 outstanding parking tickets dating back to 2000. Assuming each of those tickets was written for the standard $15, Riegel says that means the city-parish is missing out on at least $1.3 million in uncollected revenue.
“But it’s likely missing out on even more. Fines automatically accrue on unpaid tickets, which means those 87,000 tickets are now worth $30 or $40 or $100 each—or more,” she writes. “In other words, anywhere from $1.3 million to more than $8 million, theoretically, is owed to the city for parking violations. That may not be a colossal amount of green, but it’s enough to make a difference in a municipal budget that could barely afford to give city employees a badly needed pay raise.”
But who’s counting?
“No one, it seems,” Rigel writes. “One can fall down a black hole of bureaucracy when looking into the seemingly simple matter of unpaid parking tickets. The deeper you dig, the more confusing the mess becomes.”
Read the full column. Send your comments to editors@businessreport.com.
