Fighting for fines: citation limits.

• Author: Shackford, Scott
• Position: Citings - Municipal budgets from traffic fines - Brief article

MISSOURI LEGISLATORS in 2014 passed a law capping the percentage of money municipalities could draw from traffic citations to fund their budgets. The impetus for the bill was a media blitz focused on St. Louis County in the wake of the Ferguson protests. Court systems in small communities were funding themselves by targeting people with frequent fines and complicated citation systems.

The new law allows most Missouri cities to derive 20 percent of their budgets from traffic citations. But for communities within St. Louis County, the number is 12.5 percent. For places without much of a tax base, the restrictions are a threat to the bottom line. For example, Cool Water, a...