Fines fund parking committee
By Christopher DaCosta
The struggle to get to class on time often left former off-campus student Colin Fleming with parking citations issued by Campus Safety Services. Forced to park in spaces not designated for his permit type, Fleming was faced with hefty fines and questioned where his money went.
"Campus Safety took about $580 in parking fines from me freshman year," said sophomore Colin Fleming. "I have no idea where that money went."
Everyday, students are faced with similar scenarios and are constantly lead to question how their fines are being put to use. Some are confused about the process or even misinformed about how the funds are used.
"I personally don't think that they [Campus Safety] don't do anything with the money, if you look at everything else Santa Clara does with their money, it'll probably go to some wasteful expense that will raise our tuition again," said sophomore John Yee.
In fact, the citation collection funds are used efficiently to pay for the parking citation system.
"The money that is derived from the parking permits and from citations goes toward the operation of parking on campus," said Campus Safety Services Director, Charlie Arolla.
Sophomore Christie Batt wants parking quality improved on campus. "I would hope that the money would go toward making the parking lot more spacious and with less potholes," she said.
Arolla said that caring for the existing facilities were included in the budget. "We are self funded, in that the money is used for maintenance and upkeep or issues related to parking - re-striping or providing lighting in parking lots," he said.
According to Arolla, the school contracts with a San Ramon enforcement center in exchange for fees dependent upon certain factors.
"There are set fees, if they have to process it additional times the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) charges us so much per license number and that is deducted from the money we receive from paid citations," Arolla said.
"Once a citation is written up on the Auto-cite system, it goes directly to the parking enforcement center in San Ramon," said Brian Sidgreaves, Campus Safety Services manager. This explains why citation envelopes, in which the notices of violations are distributed, are addressed to a mysterious San Ramon location.
Students like Yee often find it difficult to understand what Campus Safety does with all that collection money. Arolla said that a debt on the existing parking structure still exists, so revenue also goes towards that.
After the university has deducted all its expenses, the remaining monies go to the City of Santa Clara.
"Some [of the money] goes to the police department, some goes to the city of Santa Clara, and some goes to the Enforcement Center," said Sidgreaves.
Any profits, Arolla said, go to the Santa Clara Police Department.
"That money goes to the city, it goes to the police department who provides us with authority to issue the citations," he said.
Streamlining dealings between the university and police department is their use of the same enforcement agency.
"We contract with the same organization to handle the parking," said Officer Perry DiBenedetto of the Santa Clara Police Department. "As far as how the money splits exactly, I am not aware."
Arolla emphasized students need to be aware that there is almost never a profit made from the citation process, most of the funds are used for fees imposed by the city.