The city of Ferguson has faced its share of problems in the months
since the shooting death of unarmed teenager Michael Brown, ranging from
protests to looting to, apparently, an ongoing budget crisis. The St.
Louis suburb, already torn by tension over law enforcement-community
relations, has announced plans to close its budget gap for the 2014-2015
fiscal year by boosting police ticketing — in other words, fining an
already anguished community in the name of “public safety” and dollar
signs.
According to Bloomberg,
Ferguson city officials plan on a million-dollar increase in public
safety fines, which already make up the second largest source of revenue
behind sales taxes. Still, the city is expected to be left with a
shortfall of more than $4 million, and will likely stoke more hostility
toward local law enforcement. Some already suspect Ferguson’s dependence
on police ticketing for revenue might be one of the factors that
contributed to community unrest that had been building before Brown’s
death.
The city has also been criticized by state legislators for
its efforts to increase revenue through fines, a practice that lawmakers
have tried to reduce or end by introducing limits on municipalities at
the state level. Bloomberg reports:
Two
bills that were pre-filed last week in the State Senate would limit
what municipalities can collect from public-safety fines.
‘‘For
Ferguson to respond to all of this and say that increasing ticketing was
a good idea is outrageous,” Scott Sifton, a Missouri state senator who
sponsored one of the pieces of legislation, said in a telephone
interview. [...]
Missouri State Treasurer Clint Zweifel, who also
opposes the use of law enforcement citations to raise revenue, supports
the legislation seeking to limit the practice.
“Increasing
reliance on such fines is the wrong way to go, period,” he said in an
e-mail. “Residents and neighborhoods are safer when police can focus on
public safety, not a municipality’s need to protect a revenue stream.”
Ferguson,
which has a 22 percent poverty rate according to most recent estimates,
is reportedly one of multiple St. Louis county communities that plans
to make residents pay for budget shortfalls.
from here
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