Oakland owes many refunds for overpaid tickets

Drivers in Oakland overpaid parking tickets by $2.3 million in 2008, 2009 and 2010, and the city is planning to notify those people that they will have 60 days to collect refunds.

A 2012 city audit found that for years, Oakland hadn't bothered to issue parking refunds for overpaid fines, as they are required to do by state law. City Auditor Courtney Ruby uncovered the practice in an audit of the city's parking department, finding that in 2011 alone, the city owed residents $316,000 in overpaid fines.

City officials said they have since determined that the cash-strapped city also owes an additional $2.3 million for fines that were overpaid in 2008, 2009 and 2010. The money will come from a general liability account.

Fine overpayments can result from a driver's misreading a ticket or paying a delinquent ticket after the city had already filed a tax lien, according to Ruby's audit.

"The goal is to clean all this up, and then we stay on top of it," said David McPherson, the city's revenue and tax administrator. "We've come a long way in the last couple years. We do have some cleaning up to do, but we've come a long way with the new technology."

Ruby said she was pleased to see the city's administration responding to her audit, which found that the city was keeping the extra cash instead of returning it to drivers.

In her audit, Ruby checked with four other large California cities, including San Francisco, and found that those cities all have systems in place so that when someone pays a ticket twice, the excess amount is automatically returned - without anyone needing to ask.

But in Oakland, officials said they do not have the technology or staff to automatically refund overpaid tickets.

"Our audit identified a gaping hole in the administration's processes," Ruby said in a statement. "I am pleased with the administration's diligence after the audit to identify the magnitude of the problem and to properly set aside $2.3 million owed to the citizens."

Oakland will send refunds to drivers owed more than $200. Those owed less will be sent notices between Jan. 9 and March 9, 2014. Citizens will have 60 days to respond.

"We're doing everything we possibly can within our means to get you your refund back," McPherson said.

McPherson, who took over in 2012, said the city has since begun using a better online system and will hire an accountant to help manage the parking program.

"When someone has a credit on their account, the first thing the system will do now is that it will look to see if you have any other outstanding tickets and apply that credit to those tickets," McPherson said.

People owed refunds can also keep the credit on the books to use against a future parking ticket, McPherson said.

McPherson said that as the city catches up on the backlog of refunds, there will be less of a burden and the city can start proactively issuing refunds to those owed less than $200.

"Once we get this into an annual pattern, hopefully each year we'll be doing an annual pattern (of refunds)," he said. "Hopefully we get to a point where we're efficient enough and we have more resources (and) we can get down below the $200 threshold and into the $100 area."

For more information about Oakland parking refunds and to file for a refund, go to: http://bit.ly/1jncTjO.