A yellow pouch worth $15: Where does the money go?
General Definitions
City Controller: The City Controller is the paymaster and chief accounting officer of the city.
Parking turnover: The ratio of the number of vehicles parked in a duration of time to the number of parking bays available.
General Fund: It provides resources necessary to sustain day-to-day operations of a city and pays for operating expenses. When governments say they need to “balance the budget,” they typically are referring to the general fund.
Compliance Officers: They are part of the police department who make sure residents of Kent are complying with the parking standards.
It’s been just over two years since the City of Kent implemented parking meters, and during that time the city generated over half of a million dollars in revenue.
However, that money also comes from parking tickets across the city, usually because of overdue meters.
Brian Huff, the Controller of Kent, broke down the revenue from both meter money and parking tickets since the meters were implemented in 2015. For the seven months the meters were used in 2015, the city made $282,730 in revenue from meters and tickets. In 2016, the city made $370,427, and so far this year, the city has surpassed the previous year by making $372,470 and counting.
Based off the data Huff supplied, it is evident that parking ticket revenue increased annually, which could be an effect from the implementation of the parking meters. In 2015, the city made only $143,641. This year, the city has already made $197,395.
Individually, meters have generated $526,286 and parking tickets have generated $499,341 over the past 29 months. In a monthly breakdown, the city has brought in about $35,400 a month. All of this money goes straight to the city’s general fund.
Bridget Susel, the Community Development Director, said the general fund is very broad, but serves an important purpose.
“The general fund is those funds that support services that are provided overall such as the general running of the government in terms of the operations. It’s basically not designated to a specific utility.”
She also explained the expenses that come from parking tickets and parking meters.
“Typically, when you have a charge for parking, even though we charge for parking, there’s expenses to that,” said Susel. “It needs to be identified to a certain fund so we can make sure the expenses that are related to that are actually paid to that specific fund, you need that for auditing purposes.”
After expenses are paid, overall revenue from the meters and tickets turn out low. The city is using the left over expenses from the revenue for new meters that will be needed in the next two to three years, Susel said.
Residents and students in Kent voiced their frustrations with the amount of parking tickets they have received in the past couple years due to the meters.
Tristan Buirley, a former Kent State student who still resides in Kent, is a manager at Jimmy John’s on Main Street. He used to be a delivery driver who would constantly get tickets from the city for being parked at the meters during his shift.
“It’s one of the most annoying things in the world. I shouldn’t have to get fined for doing my job,” Buirley said. “If we were really slow then I would put in at least a half hour worth of money, but even that wasn’t enough sometimes. I’d be in there for 45 minutes and would think I put in enough money, and I didn’t and they would ticket me.”
Buirley has received four tickets from the city and has not paid any of them off. He said he has other important things to worry about.
“For the most part it’s just that I don’t have the money to pay them, they’re not a high priority to me because I have to pay rent, and I have to pay off my loans, and I have to pay other bills, and as long as my car isn’t getting towed or getting a boot, then I’m not going to worry about getting those paid right away. I’m going to pay them when I have the extra cash.”
Kent State student Brittney Prather also expressed her annoyance with the parking rules downtown.
“I was frustrated because they cost money, and some of them you wouldn’t know, like when I backed into a parking spot. Who would know not to back into a parking spot? There are no signs, there’s nothing.”
Susel said the main reason the meters were put in was to facilitate parking turnover. Before the city redeveloped the downtown, parking was not in high demand, but after new businesses moved in, they needed more turnovers for customers.
“Once the downtown was redeveloped and we had more of a mix of commercial and retail uses, it was important for us to facilitate and enforce that two hour street parking limit, so we could make sure patrons had the opportunities to find parking and to get in and out of the locations. The parking meters do that,” Susel said.
Buirley, however, does not see the meters doing their job when it comes to parking turnover. “If they want to keep turnover in businesses, they shouldn’t have it end at five o’clock.”
The City of Kent has two Compliance Officers who only go out during business hours Monday through Friday to look for meter and parking violations.
“Five o’clock is when people are going out, and that’s when turnover is greater for businesses. So I think it’s pointless. They want to say it’s for turnover when they stop it at the busiest time,” Buirley said.
According to Susel, the Kent State Police Department is upgrading their ticketing system in the next month or two. She is unsure how much the new meters will be and there has been no discussion of changing the one-dollar per hour rate.
