Even in the days when the District government couldn’t answer phones, pick up trash or educate children, it was very adept at raining parking tickets on residents and visitors. I always marveled at the competency of the parking enforcement system. It seemed as if meter men and maids were lurking within range of my vehicle so they could slip that hot-pink ticket under the wiper as soon as the meter ran out. Let too many tickets slide, and the DMV would apply the boot.
The parking ticketing system was a model of efficiency.
Well, dear Washingtonians, prepare yourselves for a fee collection system on steroids across the D.C. government. Mayor Vincent Gray has slipped the “Delinquent Debt Recovery Act of 2012” into the Budget Support Act now working its way through the council. The language, as now written, creates a centralized debt collection unit that has the power to place a lien on your home if you owe the District money for fees — or traffic tickets.
The bill would establish a “Central Collection Unit” within the Office of the Chief Financial Officer. Let’s say your neighbor dumped trash in the alley behind your house, and the District fined you for crapping up public space, and you ignored the ticket because it was your neighbor’s fault. The Central Collection Unit would have the power to farm the tickets out to a professional collection agency.
Your tax dollars at work! Against you.
Council member Mary Cheh came up with the bill. I told her it sounded draconian.
“It’s an effort to consolidate debt collection in one spot,” she said. “It would be far more efficient, far more effective.”
But why find another way to harass D.C. residents?
“I don’t think it should be ridiculed,” she told me. “We’re following what other states do, including Maryland. It’s not over the top. It’s a way to collect money that’s owed the government.”
All good, but the way this bill has moved through the government reminds me of the line that compares legislation to making sausage. Cheh came up with the idea and introduced the bill. She held a hearing and was moving it to a vote. At which point Mayor Gray, in search of revenue, hijacked the Cheh bill and stuck it in the budget act.
I’m not opposed to the District getting paid for fees and tickets. But this bill and the process by which it could become law are flawed. Cheh is still in the process of trying to amend crucial language to set dollar limits above which D.C. could file a lien. There is none, as written. The bill’s implementation leaves too much room for a process that could be way too punitive. Details about due process are still in the works.
The budget act is scheduled to come before the council for a second reading on June 5.
“I’m taking a serious look at this,” Council Chairman Kwame Brown told me.
Great idea.
Harry Jaffe’s column appears on Tuesday and Friday. He can be contacted at [email protected].
