The city of Kent has collected $3 million in three years from drivers caught speeding by cameras in school zones.
Kent started the school traffic camera program in 2014 at Sunrise and Neely-O’Brien elementary schools. The city added cameras in September 2015 at Meridian and Millennium grade schools.
Ticket revenue hit $1.12 million in 2016 after bringing in $951,835 in 2015 and $927,543 in 2014, according to an email from City Finance Director Aaron BeMiller. The city issued 9,101 tickets in 2016; 8,122 in 2015 and 8,366 in 2014.
Police issue a $124 fine for a vehicle exceeding the 20 mph school speed limit by 1 to 9 mph and issue a $248 fine for speeds of 10 mph or faster above the speed limit. The cameras operate for 30 minutes in the morning before school and 30 minutes in the afternoon after school.
But while revenue has gone up with the addition of two schools, more drivers are slowing down each year at the Sunrise and Neely-O’Brien school zones. The number of tickets has dropped each year at the two schools.
The Neely-O-Brien zone had 4,779 citations in 2014, 3,987 in 2015 and 2,981 in 2016, according to city documents. The reduced citations at Sunrise were 3,638 in 2014, 3,130 in 2015 and 2,533 in 2016.
“At Neely, we’ve had a 7.3 percent to 17.7 percent decrease in violations in three years,” said Kent Police Cmdr. Todd Durham in a report April 11 to the City Council’s Public Safety Committee. “At Sunrise, we’ve had a 1.2 percent to 16.4 percent decrease. The other two schools we do not have enough data yet because they are newer to the program.”
Police started the program in January 2014 at the request of Kent School District officials in an effort to get drivers to obey the 20 mph speed limit at schools where traffic studies showed the most violations.
“Is what we are doing working? To us it is working with reducing the number of violators,” Durham said. “It’s trending down. We are trending in the right direction.”
In the first full year of cameras at the two additional school zones, 1,813 citations were issued at Meridian and 1,785 at Millennium.
Arizona-based American Traffic Solutions (ATS), Inc., has a five-year contract with the city to provide the camera services that include the equipment as well as mailing out tickets. The city paid ATS $367,333 last year for its nine months of work during the school year. The contract expires May 28, 2018.
Cameras take a video and still images of a speeding vehicle from behind. Speed is measured by sensors in the road. After review by a police officer, ATS staff will send a ticket to the vehicle’s registered owner. The cameras only take images of the vehicle and license plate, not the driver or passengers.
By city ordinance, funds are used to cover the cost of administering the program. Any additional funds in excess of the costs of administering the program are to be used for enforcement and processing of traffic and criminal laws in the city.
The school traffic camera fund had a balance of $1.76 million as of March 31, BeMiller said. About $1.07 million already had been budgeted for 2017.
The police department’s use of the funds includecity jail renovations, police overtime costs, a use of force training simulator, traffic safety equipment, seven new vehicles, drones, surveillance cameras, 3D crime scene scanner, security upgrades at the main police station and three substations.
Councilman Jim Berrios said at the committee meeting that a few people have asked him about whether more funds could be spent on the actual traffic camera program in an effort to reduce citations even further.
“What else we can do with funding to protect the kids?” Berrios said. “Maybe we can put radar speed signs out if numbers start climbing again.”
Berrios said he would like police staff to consider additional warning signs in the school zones in the fall if the number of citations remain high.
• School traffic camera revenue
2014 – $927,543
2015 – $951,835
2016 – $1.12 million
Total: $3.005 million
Source: City of Kent Finance Department
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