According to Stringer, the rise in fines has been fueled by a spike in quality of life violations.
By Forum Staff
The City collected $993 million in fines in Fiscal Year 2016, a record high for fine collection and a 16-percent increase since FY 2012, according to new data released by Comptroller Scott Stringer.
The largest category of fines is parking violations, but Stringer said the rise was fueled by a spike in quality of life violations. The City issued nearly 700,000 quality of life violations in FY 2016 – up 51 percent since FY 2013 and generating a total of $184 million. Parking violations accounted for 55 percent of all revenues from fines in FY 2016, now reaching $545 million, the comptroller said.
“Fines are an important tool to discourage behavior that can be harmful to others, like with Vision Zero. At the same time, with the cost of living rising and rents soaring, New Yorkers feel squeezed, and unnecessary fines or overly-aggressive enforcement don’t help,” Stringer added. “We release this data to deliver transparency, and to find out where we can improve. We have to keep working to strike the right balance between effective enforcement and not overburdening our residents.”
According to Stringer, the City imposes fines for violations of various laws and regulations, including regulations related to parking, building codes, consumer affairs, and public health and safety. Among the data released last week:
The City issues anywhere between 9 and 11 million parking tickets per year. In FY 2016, parking violations raised $545 million, or 55 percent of all total City revenues from fines. Revenue from parking tickets has raised $32 million between FY 2012 and FY 2016, Stringer noted.
Since 2010, red light cameras have been installed at 150 intersections. Red light camera revenues peaked in FY 2011 at $71 million and have been falling since, as the number of tickets dropped, likely due to increased motorist awareness.
“Quality of Life” violations such as littering and noise pollution, sidewalk violations and public health and safety violations generated $184 million, rising $41 million between FY 2012 and FY 2016. Approximately 700,000 “quality of life” violations were issued last year, roughly two-thirds of which came from the Department of Sanitation for improper waste disposal, dirty sidewalks, and other trash or public cleanliness infractions.
Over that time frame, revenues from restaurants and other small business violations have decreased by $27 million, consistent with Mayor de Blasio’s “Small Business First” initiative to ease the burden on small businesses.
In FY 2016, revenue from
fines placed against retail stores and tobacco dealers totaled $10 million, 33 percent less than collections of $14 million in FY 2012.
Moving violations issued by a police officer – speeding tickets, seat-belt, and cell-phone violations –
generate substantially less revenue for the City than parking tickets. Revenues from moving violations averaged only 3 percent of total parking ticket revenues over the last five years. The City issues about 10 times more parking tickets than moving violations to the 1.4 million people who own and drive cars in the five boroughs.
However, the comptroller also noted that while the City collects more than half a billion dollars in parking fines every year, millions of dollars in parking fines go uncollected or get written off each year. In FY 2016, more than $600 million worth of outstanding parking tickets were either written off or deemed uncollectible.
