BALTIMORE (WBFF) — Federal Hill residents digging into city data say Baltimore is leaving hundreds of millions of dollars on the table by failing to collect fines and fees tied to parking and moving violations.
Stephen Topping and Sandra Seward said they began looking into the issue while probing concerns about drivers who have “skidded and raced” through the historic neighborhood. Using statistics from the city’s Open Baltimore website, they calculated outstanding fines and penalties which, they say, the city has not collected.
“When we saw these numbers it was shocking,” Topping said.
“This is just a basic formula to collect parking fees,” Seward insisted.
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Initially, their calculations, through November of last year, totaled more than $288 million in uncollected fines, they said. After adding the past six months, they said the citywide total to date is more than $323 million in uncollected fines and fees.
“We believe that Open Baltimore is correct and this is correct,” Seward said.
Topping said the numbers show “something needs to change.”
The residents’ findings come as city leaders have also been discussing uncollected revenue. At the city’s Board of Estimates meeting last week, auditors said they discovered more than $4 million in invoices that had gone uncollected.
“We simply didn’t have the staff. We had significant shortages in revenue collection and accounting,” directors at the city’s finance department said.
Mayor Brandon Scott, speaking at the same meeting, reacted: “There is no way in hell we should have this amount of money just standing out there.”
“If he’s on the Board of Estimates and attends these meetings, he should know all of this,” Seward said.
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On Wednesday, City Council is set to begin dissecting the city’s proposed budget. Federal Hill residents hope the city will focus on collecting what is already owed before considering raising fees or taxes.
“I’m hoping something positive comes out of these budget meetings and I hope they present something to the public about what their plan is and to collect the money for our city,” Seward said.
“We just don’t want to see the city taxpayers have to take on a new burden when if we collected the outstanding revenue, we wouldn’t have to,” Topping said.
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