Politics & Government

Redmond Officials Not Expecting Big Payout From Red-Light Cameras

The city's finance director says King County is retaining 80 percent of the citation revenue for court costs, and he doesn't expect much, if any, of that money to be returned.

Redmond's red-light and speed cameras have generated more than half a million dollars in fines so far this year, but officials say it's likely that only a small percentage of the money will end up on the city's balance sheets.

According to financial data released at last month's , tickets issued using the city's three red-light cameras and one speed camera totaled $567,859 between March 16 and July 14 of this year. Of that money, however, King County has retained $454,282—80 percent—for court costs, and $47,000 has gone to the city's camera vendor, American Traffic Solutions.

What remains is $66,578—not quite 12 percent of the total ticket revenue.

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Although King County will "true up" its retainer at the end of the year to match the actual costs it spends on people who contest or mitigate their camera-enforced citations, Redmond Finance Director Michael Bailey said his experience with court costs for other types of citations leads him to believe the projected court expenses for the camera-enforced tickets will be close to accurate.

But it's entirely possible, Bailey said, that the city could end up owing the county even more money.

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“We’re hoping not to pay, but we’re not expecting to get more money back either,” he said.

An expected expense

Although the amount of money Redmond pays to King County for court services might be a surprise to some, Bailey said the expenses were well known ahead of time among city officials, who negotiated the 80 percent financial retainer with the county before the camera enforcement program began.

Part of the reason Redmond retains so little of its traffic camera revenue is because, unlike nearby municipalities with their own court system, the city must contract with an outside agency—King County—in order to give people the chance to contest or mitigate their citations.

Redmond Police Commander Shari Shovlin, who helps oversee the city's camera enforcement program, said a steady rate of about 56 percent of the camera citations are being paid right away, while another 22 percent to 24 percent are being contested. The remaining 18 percent to 20 percent of tickets belong to people who don't show up for court or have yet to pay their fines, she said.

The rate of people who contest the citations is not a concern for the department, Shovlin said.

“That’s perfectly fine," she said. "That’s their due process, and we absolutely encourage that.”

At the same time, however, Shovlin says the amount of money the city ends up generating from camera-enforced citations this year will likely be somewhat insignificant.

"It’s clearly not a big huge money-maker when you have a city that has a 35-million-dollar budget … and that’s not our biggest goal anyway,” she said.

Initiative effort continues

Meanwhile, activist Scott Harlan is continuing his , even though the deadline to qualify for the November ballot passed earlier this week.

The new goal, Harlan said, is to have a special election on the camera initiative in February. He said he and his supporters are well on their way to collecting the required 3,845 signatures but declined to release a specific total.

A special election would cost the city about $70,000 to $80,000, according to Bailey. Despite that added expense, Harlan said he believes the cost of the vote is an "unfortunate" necessity to ensure that residents' voices are heard.

“Democracy has a cost,” he said.

Regarding the latest financial data, Harlan said most camera opponents are more angry about the total amount of fines that are being collected than they are about which entity ends up keeping the funds.

“Those that are primarily concerned about the money are concerned about the millions of dollars that are coming out of taxpayers' pockets,” he said.


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