Toledo’s austere 2016 general-fund budget proposal includes a crafty way to net an easy $800,000 from speeders by using an apparent loophole in Ohio’s speed-camera ban.
Following the lead of Youngstown and Newburgh Heights, Ohio, Toledo police officers soon will have hand-held speed-detection cameras they can use to nail lead-footed motorists without leaving their patrol cars.
“Obviously, we are very concerned about the safety issue on the streets as well as the highways in Toledo, as well as school zones,” City Finance Director George Sarantou said Friday when he and Mayor Paula Hicks-Hudson released the $252.12 million proposed spending plan for next year.
“It is a way to comply with the law,” Mayor Hicks-Hudson said.
The 2015 general budget fell short on revenues, mostly because Toledo’s 2.25-percent income tax did not generate the expected $169.56 million but also because the city overestimated, for a second straight year, how much would come from red-light and speed-camera citations.
The best Toledo can hope for this year is $2.1 million from the cameras, instead of the budgeted $3.2 million, officials said Friday.
Mr. Sarantou said he expects $1.5 million from the 44 stationary cameras at 28 sites, plus one school-zone mobile speed unit. Another $800,000 would come from the yet-to-be acquired hand-held devices, which will be provided free to the city by the company that manages the camera network, officials said.
That $2.3 million total expected next year is still less than what the city used to get from its stationary cameras. Toledo took in $787,910 in 2010; just more than $1 million in 2011, and nearly $3 million in 2012.
Police Chief George Kral said the hand-held devices send image and speed information to Redflex Traffic Systems, the Arizona-based firm that maintains the city’s stationary-camera system and keeps a percentage of the fines.
“It’s basically the exact same procedure that would be for the visionary cameras,” the chief said.
Officers could stand or sit on a bridge over a freeway such as I-75 or I-475 and capture dozens or even hundreds of speeders’ license plates in a single day.
“We don’t have to jump in a police car and chase them down,” Chief Kral said. “It’s just another way to ensure public safety. Speeding and reckless operation is a huge ... concern.”
Councilman Larry Sykes weighed in on the idea Friday, suggesting that speeding is a particular problem in school zones.
Camera citations, assessed as civil penalties, cost violators $120, of which $90.25 belongs to the city. That suggests the Hicks-Hudson administration expects officers to catch at least 8,865 speeders with the hand-held devices.
Automated red-light and speed cameras have withstood numerous legal challenges in Ohio, including a 2008 Ohio Supreme Court ruling. But the Ohio General Assembly thought it could end unpopular traffic-camera enforcement with a provision requiring a full-time officer to be present when an automated enforcement camera catches a speeder. Hand-held cameras comply with that part of the law.
State Sen. Bill Seitz (R., Cincinnati), who views camera enforcement as a municipal cash grab, helped write the law that had been viewed as effectively prohibiting camera enforcement.
Accusing the state legislature of “economic dragooning,” Lucas County Common Pleas Judge Dean Mandros in October ruled that Ohio may not withhold funding from the city of Toledo for operating traffic-enforcement cameras.
He had ruled in April that portions of the state law that restricted such cameras’ use unconstitutionally violated the city’s home-rule powers. Among the provisions he cited was its requirement that a police officer be present at all times when a traffic camera is in use.
The General Assembly subsequently approved a budget bill that said any city that disregarded the camera law would have the amount of the gross fines billed from its traffic cameras deducted from the local-government funds it receives from the state.
The mayor’s proposed 2016 general fund budget also increases what Toledoans pay monthly for trash collection, pushes back the hiring of new police officers and firefighters, and transfers $10.4 million out of the fund used for street repaving to pay for general expenses. Under the plan, the city’s monthly trash fee would be raised from $8.95 to $15 for most households, while senior citizens with homestead exemptions would pay $8.50 instead of $5.
The spending plan — which was due before today and must be approved by Toledo City Council by March 31 — estimates the city’s income tax will generate $167.5 million next year. That is 1.22 percent less than the $169.56 million the city had hoped to collect in 2015. The city expects to collect about $167 million from the tax this year.
Contact Ignazio Messina at: imessina@theblade.com or 419-724-6171 or on Twitter @IgnazioMessina.
First Published November 15, 2015, 5:00 a.m.
