Red-light fines benefit vendor.
MOBILETRAXX ELECTRONICS
Enter subhead content here Red-light fines benefit vendor City forgoes profit to lower risk of camera deal Wednesday, Jodi THE City officials have long said that putting cameras at red lights is not about the money. Good thing. The camera vendor says the city should expect to make less than $300,000 per year. When Redflex submitted its proposal to the city last year, the city’s projected take was much higher: $4.5
million. That’s about 15 times more than what the city now stands to make. If the cameras catch you running a red light, you still will have to pay a $95 ticket. The number of cameras the
city plans to use is down a bit, from 20 to 17. But the biggest difference is Redflex’s take. Instead of collecting about 21 percent of the proceeds as their proposal pitched, Redflex will start out by pocketing
75 percent of every fine collected. Under the company’s original proposal, the city would have paid $5,170 per camera each month. To make enough
money to cover that expense, each camera would have to bring in fines from about two tickets per day. Redflex’s proposal
said a conservative estimate would be 12 tickets per day, adding up to $4.5 million in revenues every year. By getting rid of the upfront cost and agreeing to pay Redflex up to 75 percent of each ticket, "There’s no magic behind the numbers," he said. But, he added, Redflex officials advise that the figures are
"for demonstrative purposes." "We advise cities not to budget based on those." City Auditor Hugh J. Dorrian said he agreed that the city should go with the safest route possible. "I would not want to see the city take a risk when we don’t know what (the cameras) will generate," he said.
The city’s 2006 budget didn’t include any revenue from the cameras, Assistant Safety Director Barb Seckler
said. "We don’t care how much revenue this brings in because you can’t put a price on safety," Seckler said.
It’s a classic bait and switch, said Ohio Rep. Jim Raussen, a Springdale Republican who proposed a bill that
would make it impossible for cities to use the cameras. "They use big numbers. . . . It makes for big public relations that gets people to use the program," Raussen said
after learning of the changed revenue projection. Former Deputy Safety Director Gary Holland said he wouldn’t be surprised if the city’s take is about
$300,000. "We thought it was going to be substantially less than what they proposed," said Still, Redflex’s original proposal promised to shield the city from any costs. "If the City should decide to pursue this model, Redflex will contractual (sic) guarantee the City can never operate
at a loss," the proposal stated. "If annually the City recoups less then the program collects, Redflex will reimburse the
City." However, "We know that eventually the model will catch up," Cities, though, could conceivably end up owing money for the cameras. Most cities take the option How "Given those numbers, the (Mayor Michael B.) Coleman administration is getting a worse deal on its red-light cameras
than it got on the Short North arches," said Franklin County Republican Party Chairman Brad Sinnott. The new estimates are based on the number of tickets The first two cameras in During about a half-hour while city officials were announcing the program to reporters, In less than five hours, the camera at 4 th and Nationwide caught an additional 17 motorists running red lights,
said Deputy Safety Director George Speaks. Anyone who gets caught by the cameras will receive warnings until April 6. Then,
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
