Spokane may offer parking ticket amnesty

Spokane city officials are figuring that 30 percent of something is better than 100 percent of nothing.

So, in a bid to raise money, they are proposing a one-time-only partial amnesty for parking scofflaws.

Under the proposal, people with parking tickets two years old or older could pay up and have their records cleared under the one-time reduction in fines.

The city has about 66,000 unpaid tickets that are two years old or older, worth about $2.4 million, which theoretically could raise as much as $720,000 under the plan, although officials predict it would be much lower.

“Many of those are uncollectible,” said Troy Peterson of Valley Empire Collections.

Overtime parking tickets that carried a $10 fine two years ago normally would cost about $85 to pay off today with the addition of penalties, collection costs and interest charges.

Some parking scofflaws have a lot of them, too.

Under the amnesty plan, they could get those tickets paid off with a one-time fee of $25 or $30. Most of the money would go to the city to boost its ailing budget.

The proposal is expected to go before the City Council in about a month, and if approved, the program would take place in October.

Peterson said he would forgo his collection fees in exchange for the opportunity to make contact with people who have unpaid parking tickets. Those folks often have other overdue accounts that have been referred to his agency for collection.

As good as the amnesty deal might seem, people who owe parking fines are notoriously difficult to get money from, Peterson said. “I don’t hold out a lot of hope for a ton of people showing up,” he said.