Companies that regularly racked up large numbers of parking tickets in the District paid only half the cost of the fines under a years-long city policy.
“When this came to light, I said, ‘Who started this? Who authorized this?’ ” D.C. Councilman Jim Graham told The Examiner. “There was no legal authority to do this.”
Graham estimates the practice cost the District more than $1 million in lost revenues during the 15 years since it began.
The policy ended this week, said D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles spokeswoman Janis Hazel, after the department notified the 147 companies that received the benefit.
Graham said the department has had a program to simplify parking ticket payments for companies, such as UPS and FedEx, that rely on a fleet of vehicles, by sending them regular reports detailing all the tickets they racked up in the District. Many businesses that rely on trucks to deliver or pick up products factor in the cost of parking tickets in their budgets.
But under the D.C. program, Graham said, the agency was giving the companies a 50 percent discount on the fines.
The agency says it collects payments for more than 2.2 million tickets overall each year.
Without the discount program, Graham said, the department estimates it can to bring in an additional $120,000 in fines. He said that estimate seemed “quite low.”
The policy was uncovered earlier this year as Graham, D-Ward, began the annual review of the agency as chairman of the council’s Committee on Public Works and Transportation.
He added that D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles took steps to end the program once it was discovered. “It was created by an administrative action and ended by an administrative action,” he said.
