This semester the San Diego Community College District is seeing fee increases all over the three campuses. From unit fees to cafeteria food, costs are being raised to make up for loss of state funding and general loss of revenue due to the current economic status in the United States.
Here on campus, at San Diego Mesa Community College, the fee of parking tickets are also on the rise.
Effective August 24, 2009, illegal parking will cost students and faculty at minimum ten more dollars per ticket than last semester.
According to Debra Picou, supervisor of Parking and Live Scan Fingerprint Services of the SDCCD Police Department, these fine increases are to not only deter students and faculty from parking illegally but also to make up for California’s budget deficit.
In the last year, at Mesa alone, over 200 disabled parking placards were confiscated. The fine for this violation was increased by one hundred dollars to $440. Forged parking permits are also a constant issue for the parking officers.
The state of California and county of San Diego both receive a percentage of every ticket issued by the SDCCD Police Department. Placed in effect January 2009, Senate Bill 1407 allocates an extra $9.50 for the county and state per ticket issued by the SDCCD Police Department.
In addition to fee increases, the SDCCD Police Department has also implemented a new system for processing tickets.
Parking tickets are now sent in ‘real time’ to the processing center so violations are immediately available online for payment and appeal. Officers also have the option to photograph each offense, which are available online as well with each ticket.
The photographs are not meant to take away the option for appeal. The faster processing of tickets and photographs will decrease staff time spent dealing with daily complaints in the police office from people who have been ticketed.
According to Picou, people with valid reasons as to why they parked illegally are still able to receive waivers for tickets; the appeals process is still the same as before.