Aug
6
Written by:
Booker B
8/6/2009 7:03 AM
So here's the letter I want to send to the governor & mayor. I've been cheesed off for a while about how they're trying to stitch together the budgets for which they're responsible from patches of parking fines, silly fees, and new & significantly increased penalties for all kinds of things. Your basic meter violation has doubled in price in the last couple of years, while the offensive nature of parking overtime has not appreciably changed. That's a clear attempt to cover a shortfall in the city's general budget, and I believe it's a dumb way to do the job. In particular, the penalties are onerous, because people often incur them because they could not afford to pay in the first place, so now they have to pay more, all so the official types don't have to risk an honest discussion of what everyone wants to spend and how much taxes will have to be to pay for that. Seems to me a crappy way to do the people's business, but I'm open to contradictory or contrasting opinions.
Note that the issue gained a higher priority because of my son's bonehead move that landed him in the penalty trap, but that's not really what I'm ranting about here. It's a story that illustrates a general point about how government structures its revenues.
August 4, 2009
Governor Bill Ritter
136 State Capitol
Denver, CO 80203
Mayor John Hickenlooper
City and County Building
1437 Bannock Street, Suite 350
Denver, CO 80202
Gentlemen,
Today, my son learned that the state has enacted a penalty for paying annual vehicle registration fees after expiration of the plates. He discovered this recent change when he finally scraped together funds to pay so he could provide evidence for parking tickets he had received from Denver for parking with expired plates. To his dismay, he was forced to pay more than twice what the plates would have cost when they expired in January, due to the brand new penalty.
Of course he and I both know that he needs to cover the cost of his car. He's been unemployed since last November after sustaining a back injury that would no longer allow him to continue doing his job, and unemployment insurance would not stretch to cover license plates, so he took his chances and lost the bet. Now that he's handed over the pound of flesh the state demanded, he has nothing left for Denver Parking's notoriously tough enforcers, or in fact for groceries.
Maybe you think that scenario is merely justice at work, but I would disagree. In these extraordinarily difficult economic times, it's easy even for people who want to fulfill their obligations to fall short. And when that happens, it seems they get caught in the official machinery for balancing the budget, where one completely legitimate fee is compounded by late penalties, then further larded by parking fines, other tickets from various agencies and jurisdictions, and who knows how many additional charges. I trust that neither of you would try to maintain that recent increases in vehicle registration, parking fines, penalties of all kinds, etc. are necessary responses to those specific functions and offenses. Surely we're all grownup enough to acknowledge that these increases are simply revenue measures to cover shortfalls in the general budgets.
I don't think of Colorado, and particularly of Denver, as places where we line up to kick someone who's down, but that's sure what has happened to my son. Already struggling up some of the steepest financial terrain in our state's history, he's now carrying the burden of what amounts to a Poor Tax, where inability to cover one expense exposes him to additional ones, all for the purpose of paying the government's unrelated bills.
That's a fairly dishonest, brutally regressive way to fund essential functions. Instead of honestly assessing costs and setting legitimate revenue streams to cover them, in consultation with relevant stakeholders, our officials are sneaking around the edges, taking the easy road of making ends meet by raising or tacking on unrelated fees and boosting fines and penalties for understandable and even inevitable lapses. These levies are almost guaranteed to fall on those least able to pay. Fairness aside, how smart is it to look for revenue increases from the people with the least resources?
You two men have put a lot of effort through TV commercials and other media to paint public portraits of yourselves as friendly, approachable, responsible public servants. I've never seen such a concerted PR effort. But the that image is badly tarnished by budget shenanigans that amount to nickel-and-diming those with only pennies to spend.
My son won't starve after paying the last few dollars of his unemployment check to help patch the hole in the state budget, I'll see to that. And he won't get any more tickets now that he's met his requirements. It's almost funny that he told me of the predicament only after he'd accumulated the tickets, because he wanted to take responsibility for his own costs. Too bad for both of us that I taught him that, I guess.
As you continue to work with difficult conditions of your own, dare we all hope that you'll find more responsible ways to do the people's business? The two of you need to man up and face the budget problems honestly, instead of shifting them in dribs and drabs onto those least able to help. You need to demand the same level of responsibility of the legislators and others with whom you work to develop policies worthy of our state's supposed concern for its citizens. At an absolute minimum, you need to include hardship exemptions that avoid compelling our state to keep grinding blood out of stones.
A tired citizen,
David W. Talley
Copies:
Paula Sandoval, State Senator, District 34
Jerry Frangas, State Representative, District 4
Rick Garcia, Denver District 1 Councilperson
Doug Linkhart, Councilperson at Large
Carol Boigon, Councilperson at Large
Tags:
5 comment(s) so far...
Re: Contradiction & Correction Welcome
>I trust that neither of you would try to maintain that recent increases in vehicle registration, parking fines, penalties of all kinds, etc. are necessary responses to those specific functions and offenses. Surely we're all grownup enough to acknowledge that these increases are simply revenue measures to cover shortfalls in the general budgets.
I still disagree. How do you know they're not going to the roads & transportation budget? Did you research where that money goes? What pays to fix the potholes in your streets, and for your snowplows in the winter? Gasoline tax alone? Maybe in Denver, but that's nowhere near enough revenue here.
I know California is different, and we probably spend a lot more on transportation costs. I don't have a problem with transportation-related tickets and fees going into that so that actually less would have to come out of the general fund to cover.
By Ivy on
8/6/2009 7:55 AM
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Re: Contradiction & Correction Welcome
I'm fairly sure the fee/penalty increases aren't going to road work, because the roads are still what they were. (There are some signs talking about projects funded by federal infrastructure stimulus funds, but that's a different thing.) The timing is just too obvious: We never had the late penalty for license plates until this year, immediately in the wake of a big-time state budget shortfall with special sessions of the legislature and all the trimmings. Similarly, meter violations doubled in price over the last couple years (still way less than San Francisco, but still they doubled) but we don't have twice the meters or maintenance or whatever.
I'd agree with the concept of user fees like gasoline taxes and license plates to pay for roads. The issue is big increases in charges without comparable changes in specific costs. The rest is going to the general fund.
By Booker on
8/6/2009 5:15 PM
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Re: Contradiction & Correction Welcome
I'm sorry you never had a late penalty for plates before, and that the meter fees increased, but that's life. Imo, you should consider yourself lucky you got away with that as long as you did--you already know I support a fine for late payment. And maybe the excessive recent increase is only seems so much because there hasn't been an inflation-based increase for so many years before. You honestly didn't expect those costs and fees to stay the same forever while everything else increased, did you? I disagree with you about the lack of comparable changes in costs--metermaids need yearly raises too, and the cost of gas to drive around to check the meters has increased, etc.-- and all this time, your fees never went up--until now. Sh*tty timing for your kid, esp. caught unaware, but it had to happen sooner or later. Perhaps the lack of increases in the past was actually a contributing factor in your big-time state budget shortfall, did you think about that?
And just becuase you haven't seen immediate road improvements with your own eyes doesn't mean its not happening, or paying into debt built up from previous improvement projects. And even after all that, so what if it goes to the general fund? Is that really so bad? The general fund pays for other important stuff, too.
I'm sorry, but no matter how you try to phrase it, the letter comes off to me as whining that your kid had to pay a fine that unfortunately, was implemented at a bad time for him. Life sucks. Move on.
By Ivy on
8/6/2009 7:11 PM
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Re: Contradiction & Correction Welcome
I like the letter, and I like letter-writing in general as a strategy. It has proven very effective for me every time I've done it. I get frustrated with penalties too and I agree that there are better ways to raise money than to fine people who make mistakes. Most of the time they are honest mistakes made by honest people, and like you're saying, it just drags them down even further. Bank fees are sortof the same situation. Sure, I know I should be responsible and not overdraw my account, but sometimes it's just going to happen no matter what I do to prevent it. So when the bank doubles the fine every time you overdraw, then charges you for EVERY overdrawn transaction, not just one at the end of the day, then you end up way further in the hole and it's even harder to get out. The same situation happened with our carport. Sure, we built it illegally, and now we're ready to take responsibility for that and make it right and pay for permits and such. But we kept getting hit with threatening letters and fine upon fine upon fine even while we were in discussions with the County trying to hold up our end of the deal. Letter-writing served me well in that case. Those of us who make mistakes need to stick up for ourselves and our human nature, and sometimes I even feel a bit of a social responsibility to stick up for others even less fortunate than myself who are facing the same issues but don't have the gumption to fire off a letter or two. I don't trust any politician to do right by my money and I feel much better when I let them know that some of us are paying attention to their actions. The good politicians really do listen.
By robin on
8/6/2009 11:08 PM
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Re: Contradiction & Correction Welcome
I appreciate the commentary. I never intended the letter to affect any of the outcomes in Alex's specific case, I just wanted to use it as an example with a lot of real-world relevance of some more objective principles. Clearly it's not going to come off that way, so if I want to do any more about this, I need to recast the discussion in objective terms.
One thing that's clear is that the new fees aren't related to changes in costs. Transportation apparently stayed in a range of 7-7.5% of the budget over the last 10 years. Similarly, meter enforcement salaries didn't double, and the gas price spike evened out.
> And even after all that, so what if it goes to the general fund? Is that really so bad?
> The general fund pays for other important stuff, too.
It definitely does (largely health services, education, and 'business-type activities' including higher ed). My sole point is that it's dishonest to cover those general increases by unrelated charges to avoid a fight over income & sales taxes, which are the large majority of state revenues and political death to any who dare to touch them. Colorado's budget is constrained by a constellation of three separate citizen initiatives with unintended compounding effects. (Sound familiar California?) So what else can the govt. do to cover cost but raise ancillary stuff? They can have an honest conversation with the voters and work for a better balance. That's the job they asked to be elected to do, and imo they're shirking it.
The London School of Economics Library's online catalog search provides a number of cites relevant to my contention that user fees and penalties are a regressive form of taxation (i.e., they place the burden more heavily on poor than on wealthy people). U.S. policy has for a long time favored a nominally progressive system, where rates rise as income does, and I support that basic concept. Otoh, many people have persuasively argued for a flat tax structure. Dunno how much of that I'd have to address to take any of this any further.
(BTW: I hope the city of London enjoyed watching my search terms scroll down the building in Michael Brown's Bluerain installation.)
Update: Just now got a phone call as I was typing. The main ticket for driving expired plates was dismissed because the kid had renewed and paid the penalty, so he just gets that one smackdown. Well, and he still has the parking fines. I had expected something of the sort would happen. Now if I were all focused on his situation, my sails would be awfully short of wind right now. But I still do feel strongly about the strcutural issues the story raises.
By Booker on
8/7/2009 12:38 PM
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