Smile And Reach For Your Wallet
When politicians tell you it’s not about the money, you can usually bank on one certainty: it’s about the money. Take, for example, speed cameras.
When they were rammed through the Queen City in 2005, politicians swore up one side and down the other that it wasn’t about money. It was about safety, we were told time and again, not easy revenue to stuff city coffers.
Turns out speed cameras are all about – wait for it – the money, as a recent piece of legislative wrangling shows. A bill filed last week by Rep. Rick Glazier, a Fayetteville Democrat, would resurrect speed cameras to help pay off a $748 million tab the state owes school districts.
The debt is due because various civil penalties that had been over the years collected by municipalities across the state – like Charlotte’s speed camera fines – weren’t paid to local schools, as called for by the state Constitution. In 2008 the N.C. Court of Appeals ruled that it was time to pay the piper and, to date, the legislature has shaved off about $18 million of the $748 million debt.
Proponents of Glazier’s bill say that 75 percent of any speed camera proceeds would be used to help pay off the balance due to schools, with the other 25 percent funneled into its allotted purpose for schools’ driver education programs.
It won’t. Bank on it. For proof, see “Trust Fund,” under “Highway.” Legislators have historically raided myriad so-called lockboxes of dedicated revenues and used the loot for other purposes. There’s no reason to think revenue derived from speed cameras won’t be similarly abused.
It is, after all, how the legislature found itself owing such an outrageous sum of money to school districts; namely by not using the proceeds from civil penalties for their intended and lawful purpose. That’s what happened in Charlotte, where the majority of fines collected from speed cameras were used to pay for the speed camera technology instead of school programs. The city was forced to abandon the scheme after the courts ruled the money belonged to the schools.
Under Glazier’s proposed bill, which if approved could become law in October, speed cameras would be set up along highway work zones and in school zones. Drivers nabbed by a speed camera would face a $250 fine for speeding in a highway work zone and a $125 fine for speeding in a school zone. Signs would be posted alerting drivers of speed cameras looming down the road. No insurance points would go on a driver’s record after being caught by a speed camera, as is typically the case for a regular speeding ticket.
It is about a straight-up, full-on money grab, plain and simple. If it compels some drivers to ease off the lead foot in the process, great; but make no mistake, this about the money.
We need your help! If you like PunditHouse, please consider donating to us. Even $5 a month can make a difference!
Short URL: https://pundithouse.com/?p=5330
