The police department of the State Center Community College District is proposing an increase in parking and citation fees charged on all campuses of the district, including Fresno City College, Reedley College, Willow International, the Madera Center and the Oakhurst Center.
The proposed increase raises the price of a semester’s parking permit from $17 to $20 and summer permits from $8 to $10. Parking meters will change from $1 an hour to $2 an hour, and daily parking permits from $1 a day to $2 a day.
The cost of parking violation fees will also increase. Right now, most violations cost $16, increasing to $32 if not paid within the first 21 days and then $45 if not paid within the next 45 days. Additionally, parking violation citations that are unpaid after 45 days must be dealt with through the Department of Motor Vehicles. The proposed fee increase would change that to $25 at the first tier, $50 at the second tier and then $100 at the third.
The only parking violation fee that would not change is parking in a space reserved for the disabled, which is $250 at first tier and then $500 through second and third tiers. Possessing a counterfeit, fraudulent, altered or forged permit will only change at the third tier from $63 to $100.
One of the reasons for the proposed increase is to raise the amount of money in the parking fund, according to SCCCD Chief of Police, Joseph Callahan.
Additionally, an information packet on the fee proposal which is available for anyone who wishes to view it, states that the money brought in from parking permits, parking meters, and parking citations all go into the parking fund which pays for things such as rebuilding and repairing the district’s parking lots, as well as parking dispensers, tickets, making and distributing parking permits, and the summer paint crew that keeps road paint visible.
The revenue in the parking fund also pays salaries for 25 percent of district’s police officers and the office assistant III’s. It pays 100 percent of the salaries of student parking control officers, student dispatchers, student clerks and an independent hearing officer for protest of citations.
Additionally, this fund also makes up for what the county charges to process a parking citation. However, , the present fees in the parking fund are not enough to cover all the expenses. For every ticket written, the County of Fresno charges $8.50 to process the ticket while the County of Madera charges $11.
Most parking violations initially cost $16, usually going up to $32 if not paid within 21 days. If the student pays within the 20 days, then the County of Fresno would charge more than half of the money made from that citation.
“I’m concerned that we may not even be at a break-even point at this time,” said Callahan. While the proposed parking free increase might not bring the parking fund completely clear of the break-even area, it would decrease the pressure.
If the parking fund did not generate enough revenue to continue paying for those things, then they would need to be covered through the general fund, which would mean less money to pay for other things around campus such as general maintenance.
“The less money we have to take out of the general fund to put into the parking fund, the better,” Callahan said. Parking permits have not had a fee increase in 20 years, the last one taking place in 1991, when parking fees rose from $16 to $17, and the summer fee from $7 to $8.
Included in the information packet is a survey of other schools and their parking and citation fees. Amongst them is Merced College which already charges $20 a semester for a parking permit. Cuesta College charges $30 for semester parking permits and $15 for the summer. California State University of Fresno charges $68 for semester parking and $48 for the summer, while University of California, Merced charges $65 per semester and $54 for the summer.
If passed, the proposed parking fee increase will go into effect around the fall of 2012.