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AlreadyShrugging t1_iwzin4t wrote

It took you 3 hours to carry soup up to your friend’s apartment? I get parking can be inconvenient, but what stopped you from running the soup up and then moving your car?

The city does pay for parking enforcement (salaries for parking officers, meters/equipment, etc) and I have frankly always wondered how much parking ticket revenue the city keeps after the costs of enforcing it in the first place.

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RulerOfTheRest t1_ix04tl1 wrote

The city actually contracts out parking enforcement, so 99% of the citations are done by Standard Parking Plus and their employees, the same folks that manage all of the city owned parking decks and lots. SP+ gets a fee for each ticket they write, and the city gets the rest, so it's in SP+'s best interest to write as many as possible to keep revenue up.

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Ok-Difference-8696 OP t1_ix0t74a wrote

Thanks for the info! I wonder, what's the point of contracting it out? Is it just cheaper than direct hires?

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RulerOfTheRest t1_ix0w4bn wrote

Probably the same reason folks pay people to mow their lawns: they don't want to deal with it. By contracting it out, the city doesn't have to manage all of the individual parking employees, pay for their healthcare and retirement, and really only has to deal with one point of contact when there are issues. I don't know when they switched to this model, but it's been a good 10 years at least at this point...

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Ok-Difference-8696 OP t1_iwzlozk wrote

Haha, no, I went there for a potluck to clarify that, but yeah, I did consider coming back to move it down but my partner has parked in city lots in downtown for DAYS without paying or getting a ticket, so I thought I could slide past undetected, as he did, if I didn’t stay overnight. Apparently that was super dumb.

Unless the officers make a lot of money, I can’t imagine that it costs that much just to run the system.

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Chickenmoons t1_iwzo304 wrote

It’s a contracted service. Police don’t usually give tickets unless someone calls them about a car blocking a loading zone or handicap ramp. Tickets from police look very different from tickets you get from parking enforcement. I’d be surprised if the city makes much money at all annually from parking tickets. Whatever money they do make likely just goes into the general revenue fund and is used for basic city expenses.

That said if a sign says 1 hour parking and your boyfriend says it’s fine to park longer I guess you learned a lesson about who to listen to.

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Ok-Difference-8696 OP t1_iwzpo91 wrote

If he'd been there he probably would've told me to move, but it definitely taught me that he's generally a luckier person than I am when it comes to not getting caught.

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AlreadyShrugging t1_ix00a2d wrote

It’s expensive to employ people and have them rove around the city. It goes far beyond wages. I’d be surprised if there’s much parking ticket revenue left to pad anyone’s pockets.

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Ok-Difference-8696 OP t1_ix016sw wrote

So I guess it just goes into making it more of a self-sufficient system then, and whatever's left as far as cost just gets supplemented with taxes?

I didn't know how many officers they have so I was just waaaay off base about the cost. My bad. 😭

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