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AMY WIMMERAs the county clerk's office recoups the cost of handling cities' parking tickets, local governments net less and less.
TREASURE ISLAND - The parking meter business isn't what it used to be.
Tuesday morning, when Terry Moon of Wichita, Kan., dropped $1 worth of quarters into a parking meter so his family of four could spend an hour at the beach, only 64 cents went to the city of Treasure Island.
The rest went to pay for the incidentals: the costs of collecting the meter money, keeping the meters in working order and writing the parking tickets for visitors who overextend their stay.
For the past two years, the clerk of the circuit court has been steadily increasing the amount it charges to process parking tickets for the municipalities. For that reason, St. Petersburg has begun collecting its own parking fines, and other Pinellas cities are considering doing the same.
Clearwater pays the county clerk's office the most of any beach city, but it still clears about $2-million a year from meters and parking tickets. The city is studying whether to follow St. Petersburg's lead and handle its own tickets.
"We've looked at it and done an analysis," said Robin Gomez, city auditor for Clearwater. "Based on the number of tickets that we write and looking at what the court is anticipating charging us, we think we could do it for less money."
For years, the clerk of the circuit court processed city parking tickets more or less as a favor, a holdover from the days when the county first took over local municipal courts. In those days, said Carol Heath, assistant clerk, the clerk of the circuit court agreed to handle the parking ticket revenue without charging the cities.
But being the clearinghouse for all the parking tickets written each year in Pinellas County proved to be a burden. In 2000, the clerk's office announced that it would phase in charging the cities for the costs of processing the tickets.
Fiscal year 2003-04, the budget for which city officials are just beginning to prepare, will be the first year that the cities are assessed the clerk's full cost of handling parking tickets. The cities that depend on parking revenue to plump up their general funds will still make money after paying the clerk's office, but they'd like to make more.
"I think St. Pete Beach would certainly want to look at anything that would save money," said Steve Gallaher, finance director in St. Pete Beach.
Last fiscal year, for example, the clerk charged Treasure Island $2,942 to process parking tickets; this year, it will likely top $8,000; by next year, the clerk's office expects to charge more than $16,000.
The impact is greater on municipalities such as St. Petersburg, Clearwater, St. Pete Beach and Madeira Beach, which depend on the parking business as a revenue source.
Madeira Beach expects to pay more than $29,000 to the clerk's office next year. By the time Madeira pays for enforcement officers, meter money collection and parking meter upkeep, the city is left with about 75 cents for every dollar it collects.
St. Petersburg, anticipating the rising cost of using the clerk's office to handle its parking tickets, took over from the clerk Oct. 1. Last year St. Petersburg paid the clerk $139,487 for handling its parking tickets, and while no numbers are yet available on how much the city will save by handling its own tickets, Parking Coordinator Earl Cooley said he's confident the city will spend less.
The clerk's office anticipated charging St. Pete Beach about $7.14 for each $17.50 parking ticket, Cooley said.
"We know we're going to be able to save more than what the county was going to charge," Cooley said.
Clearwater hopes to do the same. Carol Heath, the assistant clerk, said the county doesn't mind.
"It's not a problem with us," she said. "We don't get any revenue. We try to recoup our costs."
Clearwater's city staff has proposed taking over parking ticket processing from the county. But Margie Simmons, finance director in Clearwater, pointed out that if multiple cities find cheaper ways to handle their parking tickets, the county could end up charging the remaining cities even more.
"If people start opting out of using the clerk, that's going to change the cost per ticket, too," Simmons said.
While some of Pinellas County's most popular tourist destinations depend on parking to enhance their budgets, Indian Rocks Beach, with its plentiful beach accesses, still functions mostly without parking meters. The city gets a share of parking revenue from a county park where meters are installed.
Because it writes so few tickets, Indian Rocks expects to pay the clerk's office only $1,352 this year.
"The people really like coming to the beach here because they don't have to deal with the hassle of parking," City Manager Tom Brobeil said, "or the look of the meters."
- Times staff writer Jennifer Farrell contributed to this report.