NYC Parking Ticket Slowdown Results are Startling

Did the NYC parking ticket slow down significantly reduce revenue for NYC?

Whether you’re for or against the police slowdown, the impact of the police action was felt throughout the city. Patrick McGeehan from the NY Times wrote a terrific article about the impact of the slowdown. I’m going to highlight some of the fascinating information.

The biggest source of revenue loss?

You guessed it, NYC parking tickets.

The biggest loss will come from all the parking tickets that went unwritten, particularly in the three weeks after two police officers were shot to death in a patrol car in Brooklyn on Dec. 20. Parking fines account for most of the revenue the city receives from summonses issued by police officers or traffic enforcement agents, who are Police Department employees.

In each of the first two weeks after the killings of those officers — Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu — the number of parking tickets issued was down over 90 percent from the same period the year before. Last week, the number of parking tickets rose to 5,550 from just 1,191 the week before, but that total was still only about a quarter of the total a year ago.”

The cost to NYC? $3M

How did the slowdown impact arrests for major crimes?

You be the judge…

What’s your reaction to the police slowdown?

Please take this brief survey (4 quick questions) and share your opinion of the NYC police slowdown. You can choose two answers.



Commentary

I found the Police Commissioner Bratton’s spin on the police slowdown interesting:

Asked last week about the cost of the slowdown to the city, Police Commissioner William J. Bratton suggested that the city might have saved money because the department was not racking up overtime pay for sending as many officers to court. Ms. Spitalnick said the overtime costs would not be computed for about three weeks, so the net financial effect of the slowdown would not be known until then.”

The NYC budget for FY 2015 is $76.9B. Losing $3M is a tiny drop in a huge bucket.

What do you think?

[“Police Slowdown Cost NYC an Estimated $5 Million in Lost Fines,” NY Times, Patrick McGeeheen]