09.03 - Administrative Fines - Laserfiche WebLink

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Why am I suggesting this approach to policing our city? If you look at the copies of dispositions that we have gotten from the court you will see that all fines are in excess of $100. Most basic tickets are in the $140-$170 range. Now with that said, the ticket fine itself is usually $40-$60 but the surcharge by the state of MN is typically $72 and higher, then you add in the law library fees etc and that's where you get the high fine amounts. With that, only 1/3 of the basic $40-$60 fine amount comes to the City of Pequot Lakes, the rest goes to the state. With our approach, we will have a base fine for the above mentioned violations at$60 The only fluctuation will be for speeding offenses. We will use a sliding scale that will go as follows: 1-10 miles per hour over the limit $60 11-20 miles per hour over the limit $75 21-30 miles per hour over the limit $90 Anything over 30 miles per hour will be a State Ticket for Careless/reckless Driving. We will use these Administrative Fines to be a positive approach to policing and public safety. Obviously to the person ticketed it is a much lesser fine than a state/county ticket. It does not affect their insurance premiums nor does it affect their driving record. It still promotes public safety and does everything that a regular state ticket does. With the city of Staples,their Chief told me that in the 3 years that he has had this program,they have had only 1 person fail to pay the fine. He states that his officers are more readily willing to work traffic because they do not feel so bad handing out$60 tickets rather than $140-$175 state tickets. With the increased patrol they have had a 50% or better reduction in accidents within their city. I see this as a win/win for the City of Pequot Lakes. We can promote safety within the community and in doing so, if a ticket is issued it is not such a devastating fine amount. Plus on a PR side, it makes our department much friendlier and somewhat compassionate. The more vehicles that are stopped for violations will result in more drugs being found, more impaired drivers arrested etc. With the fines, ALL of the money comes directly to the City. Rather than a basic ticket for speeding on a state ticket,the fine amount for 10 over the limit is $40, and of that the city gets 1/3. The fines will be DEDICATED FUNDS to go for paying for part time officers wages and uniforms/equipment needs, reserve officers equipment and supplies. Part time officers are paid and reserve officers are volunteers. With a very rough estimate, if our department issued 2 citations a day for 365 days a year, that would be 730 tickets a yearoust petty misdemeanors, not Dwi's, Assaults etc) At 730 tickets per year times the basic amount of$60 We will potentially generate