Uh ya.

No doubt the city would have budget problems. Not sure police would have layoffs. They may replace officers and the layoff people fromother departments. Small cities especially have a large part of the budget from fines and forfeitures. Bigger cities less a percentage

In cases like this, yes...

It depends on the town... mine absolutely does not. Some small towns, without adequate tax revenues, can only provide police if they are able to pay for themselves. I suspect that's the case in lots of small towns.

I had a friend in the Houston police dept. He said if you came back from your shift with less than 10 speeding tickets they would say "only 8 speeding tickets?" or whatever. You could have caught a burglar, they wouldn't care. They just wanted you to have at least 10 speeding tickets.

Tom Doniphon said:

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It depends on the town... mine absolutely does not. Some small towns, without adequate tax revenues, can only provide police if they are able to pay for themselves. I suspect that's the case in lots of small towns.

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Small town councilman here. Tickets in no way pay for the police budget. Maybe 2-5% per year. We have 2 full timers and 2 part timers.

In our specific situation, we actually could get by on 1 police officer. But that's a whole other conversation.

i stick it to the man, i follow traffic laws so i dont get ttickets

Quote:

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Small town councilman here.

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Ditto.

Tom Doniphon said:

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Quote:

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Small town councilman here.

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Ditto.

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We can complain to each other our shared headaches.

30+ years ago some small towns on the interstates used to get most of their entire municipal budgets from traffic enforcement.

Splendora was notorious for this and would hire off duty police from big cities to work traffic enforcement for them.

The Texas legislature in the 90s passed some sort of restrictions limiting the revenues cities could generate from traffic enforcement fines and anything over that limit had to be turned over to the State's general fund. That effectively ended the worst speed traps in Texas.

No they don't. PD's only get like 3-5 percent of the ticket revenue. The rest goes to the state. PD's are mostly funded through sales tax and other local taxes

TexAgs91 said:

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I had a friend in the Houston police dept. He said if you came back from your shift with less than 10 speeding tickets they would say "only 8 speeding tickets?" or whatever. You could have caught a burglar, they wouldn't care. They just wanted you to have at least 10 speeding tickets.

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I believe Houston PD has a traffic enforcement division and that's ALL they do. All day everyday. Other officers on the other hand never write a single one.

rocky the dog said:

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In cases like this, yes...

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*********it I'm laughing so hard it hurts

lb3 said:

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30+ years ago some small towns on the interstates used to get most of their entire municipal budgets from traffic enforcement.

Splendora was notorious for this and would hire off duty police from big cities to work traffic enforcement for them.

The Texas legislature in the 90s passed some sort of restrictions limiting the revenues cities could generate from traffic enforcement fines and anything over that limit had to be turned over to the State's general fund. That effectively ended the worst speed traps in Texas.

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Not the ones practicing theft and extortion through civil forfeiture

lb3 said:

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30+ years ago some small towns on the interstates used to get most of their entire municipal budgets from traffic enforcement.

Splendora was notorious for this and would hire off duty police from big cities to work traffic enforcement for them.

The Texas legislature in the 90s passed some sort of restrictions limiting the revenues cities could generate from traffic enforcement fines and anything over that limit had to be turned over to the State's general fund. That effectively ended the worst speed traps in Texas.

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They limited the amount of revenue you could generate from fines. At a certain number, they have to share speeding fines with State of Texas.

The cities and counties figured out a solution. They increased the court fees tremendously. Court fees aren't shared. That goes into their pocket.

TwoMarksHand said:

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Tom Doniphon said:

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It depends on the town... mine absolutely does not. Some small towns, without adequate tax revenues, can only provide police if they are able to pay for themselves. I suspect that's the case in lots of small towns.

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Small town councilman here. Tickets in no way pay for the police budget. Maybe 2-5% per year. We have 2 full timers and 2 part timers.

In our specific situation, we actually could get by on 1 police officer. But that's a whole other conversation.

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I have no doubt what you're saying is true.


But let's talk about major cities. Surely it's different.

Clob94 said:

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TwoMarksHand said:

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Tom Doniphon said:

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It depends on the town... mine absolutely does not. Some small towns, without adequate tax revenues, can only provide police if they are able to pay for themselves. I suspect that's the case in lots of small towns.

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Small town councilman here. Tickets in no way pay for the police budget. Maybe 2-5% per year. We have 2 full timers and 2 part timers.

In our specific situation, we actually could get by on 1 police officer. But that's a whole other conversation.

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I have no doubt what you're saying is true.


But let's talk about major cities. Surely it's different.

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It's not. The major cities in Texas have their annual financial reports available on the internet.

The ticket "revenue" cities receive doesn't cover the cost of the police department or the court systems. This is from Houston's 2020 report. Public Safety is PD and FD, but if you get into the details of the report you can see the breakdown.

Pull over and fine every expired paper tag in Harris County and see what that nets...

Exponential increase in...

Expired/No Registration

Driving w/ expired/no license

Failure to Appear

Chance that fines collected cover expenses of enforcement and prosecution...

Zero

Kenneth_2003 said:

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TexAgs91 said:

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I had a friend in the Houston police dept. He said if you came back from your shift with less than 10 speeding tickets they would say "only 8 speeding tickets?" or whatever. You could have caught a burglar, they wouldn't care. They just wanted you to have at least 10 speeding tickets.

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I believe Houston PD has a traffic enforcement division and that's ALL they do. All day everyday. Other officers on the other hand never write a single one.

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This is true. A police department cannot tell their officers to write a certain number of tickets. That would be a quota, which is illegal.

Usually costs more in overtime to pay cops, than any revenue it generates.

In places that still use cameras (outside of Texas), that is all revenue raising.

Gator92 said:

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Pull over and fine every expired paper tag in Harris County and see what that nets...

Exponential increase in...

Expired/No Registration

Driving w/ expired/no license

Failure to Appear

Chance that fines collected cover expenses of enforcement and prosecution...

Zero

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Hah. What's the point in Doras gestapo pulling over cars with expired paper plates?

Cops know they ain't got no money, and won't appear anyways. Do Democrat DAs even want to enforce the law in the first place?

Somebody needs to tell those rat bast@rds in Estilline that tickets aren't supposed to be revenue generators

Yes.
Michael Berry has this own thing about that on his show.

He questioned HPD back the in day that their budget line for ticket revenue should be zero.
Otherwise the budget line is a de facto budget.
PoPo did not like being questioned like that.

Gator92 said:

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Pull over and fine every expired paper tag in Harris County and see what that nets...

Exponential increase in...

Expired/No Registration

Driving w/ expired/no license

Failure to Appear

Chance that fines collected cover expenses of enforcement and prosecution...

Zero

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You forgot NO INSURANCE...

I've worked for a mid-sized agency in the past and currently work for a large municipal agency with ~1,500 officers. My current general orders mandate citations for certain traffic offenses and allow warnings for others. As an example, I believe our policy mandates citations for speeding 15+mph over the limit. This serves to act as guidance so all officers handle traffic infractions in a similar manner. I've never abided by this policy and rarely write citations except for no driver license and no insurance.

In over a decade, I've never been questioned on citations vs warnings by any of my supervisors. About the only thing similar to a quota I've experienced while working in a traffic enforcement unit is a minimum traffic "contact" number. Bosses didn't care about tickets vs warnings but rather wanted to ensure officers were actually working.

I also used to work a large amount of STEP, which is an overtime grant funded by the state. Even the STEP grant just mandates minimum contacts per hour and there's no mandate to write citations. I usually stopped for speed and wrote nothing but warnings while other guys stopped for no front license plate and again only wrote warnings.

If 20 minutes go by without a traffic stop, I just need to document the reason. Could be as simple as "no violations observed". Again, the minimum contact number and documentation l is to ensure officers are actually working and not just parked on the side of the road playing angry birds.

I don't doubt that there are agencies that demand their officers write citations for revenue purposes but I've never experienced or heard of it.