Liss said they were surprised to learn, “It’s really on no one’s radar.”

AMBIGUITIES IN THE LAW

Richard Sheets, deputy director of the Missouri Municipal League, said nobody knows what to make of the law because regulations haven’t been written to implement it.

Liss said communities are struggling to conform. “Until the legislature provides regulation and guidance,” she said, “there is really no way for the municipalities to understand its full force and effect.”

One of the biggest questions: Does the limit include fines from failure-to-appear warrants and bail forfeited on traffic tickets? What about red light and speed cameras?

Deputy State Auditor Harry Otto said his office views it simply: “If there are fines, costs and fees that don’t say traffic in them, but the instigator was a moving violation, we’re going to be of the position that it all flows back to traffic.”

Yet almost uniformly, municipalities reached by the Post-Dispatch took a different view, particularly with failure to appear cases. Over the past decade, they have become a mechanism to jail scofflaws and ensure they pay their original tickets plus additional fees.