Traffic Safety Corner
Traffic Safety: Enforcement & Collision Reduction
The police department emphasizes the use of the lowest level of enforcement to gain the highest level of voluntary compliance. Officers have discretion to issue a verbal warning, written warning and/or traffic citations or in the case of traffic crimes make an arrest. Officers look at the totality of circumstances when enforcing traffic laws, not at generating the most citations. The ultimate goal with traffic enforcement is to reduce traffic crashes and ensure the safety of not only vehicles but also pedestrians and bicyclists. Traffic enforcement is not a huge revenue generator for the City, and it should not be. The revenue generated from tickets and arrests is listed below along with the cost of operating the municipal court, jail costs and medical care of prisoners.
The police department has received eight (9) consecutive yearly awards for our traffic safety education and enforcement efforts to reduce crashes. Traffic safety involves much more than merely writing a ticket. In 2022, a total of 2,040 vehicle stops were made with 736 citations issued or roughly 36% of vehicle stops resulted in a traffic ticket. Nationally, approximately 49% of traffic stops resulted in a traffic ticket.
Percentages of Violation Type that Resulted in Citations during 2023:
Parsons Municipal Court Fines and Expenses
The fine amounts collected by the municipal court include both traffic infraction fines as well as fines from misdemeanor crimes such as battery, theft, disorderly conduct, and related crimes. All felony cases are handled through District Court and the city receives no fine revenue from those cases.
Court costs/Jail Medical and assessments are fees added to the fine amount.
KLETC Training is an assessment sent to the state that supports the Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center and is imposed by most if not all courts. These funds are not controlled or used by the City.
The city pays the Sheriffs Office a current daily jail fee of $20 for prisoners booking in on or serving sentences on city ordinance violations (misdemeanors such as battery, theft, battery, disorderly conduct, and related crimes. The city is not charged for prisoners booked on felonies and those are a state responsibility for prosecution and incarceration.
We anticipate an increase in the daily jail charge to $40 to $47 based on increased costs that the jail is facing. This would of course be about double our jail bill.
Jail medical expenses involve the cost of providing medical services to individuals who are either in the Parsons short-term lock-up facility (usually waiting to be transferred to the county jail), or city prisoners who are incarcerated at the county jail (again those are city ordinance violations). State statutes and case law require law enforcement to provide medical aid for any prisoner who is in custody. This involves not just an injury sustained if a person is hurt when they are arrested (resisting arrest), but if they have any chronic or on-going medical needs (diabetes, COPD, complain of chest pain, or other ailments).
The KLETC assessment fee is a pass through, first it is collected as revenue, but then is sent in total to the State.
The revenue associated with tickets and arrests basically covers the minimum operation of municipal court and jail housing costs. What is not listed as an expense is the overtime that is paid to officers to appear in court on their days off. In 2020 the net positive was $1,295.08 which went to the City's General Fund, 2021 $14,274.25 went to the General Fund, and in 2022 $15,075.48 went to the General Fund in 2023 $30,642 went to the General Fund.
