The latest total for the revenue recovered by the District in its ticket amnesty program falls well short of projections, although city officials say they still expect to near their mark.
The District has recovered $4.95 million in unpaid traffic tickets and fees as of last week, Department of Motor Vehicles Director Lucinda Babers told The Washington Examiner. The department had projected that $6.3 million in fines would be recovered when it launched the six-month program in July.
In testimony last week before a D.C. Council committee, Babers said that she still expects to collect “close to” $6 million. She said DMV is still collecting revenue every week that is related to the amnesty program because some payees are on a payment plan.
However, Babers also said typically only about one-third of those on payment plans actually finish their payments. The city also paid a finders fee to the debt collector it hired to run the amnesty program, so its costs associated with the program bring down the actual revenue to just under $4.1 million.
Overall, the amount collected represents a small fraction of the nearly $300 million in outstanding fines and fees owed to DMV, according to the department’s data.
John Townsend, a spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic, said those who took advantage of the program saved themselves more trouble in the future.
“There’s still hundreds of millions [of dollars of outstanding debt] still out there and people are still responsible for those tickets,” Townsend said. “The next program in place to recoup that money will be even harsher.”
He noted the District is considering a law that would establish an in-house debt collection agency that has the power to file suit for outstanding debts or place liens on property. That could make it easier for the city to collect money owed by Maryland and Virginia residents, he said. Currently, D.C. simply farms out outstanding debt to collection agencies.
Most major cities have a comparable amount of outstanding parking tickets. Houston is owed $300 million in outstanding parking tickets and New York City is owed $700 million, according to AAA Mid-Atlantic.
The District’s amnesty program ran from July 2011 through January 2012. The previous amnesty program was in 2001.
