Legislation restores fines to local governments

HOPEWELL — The storied “Million-Dollar Mile” of Interstate 295 may once again become a path to prosperity for Hopewell.

For a decade, the 3.3 miles of I-295 below the Appomattox River that wind erratically between the city of Hopewell and Prince George County have sat at the center of a statewide controversy over the extent to which localities should be allowed to profit from patrolling state and federally funded roads. In 2012, the General Assembly attempted to resolve the issue by instituting a new policy that would siphon off a gradually increasing percentage of the traffic fines localities collected each year. The more local governments collected from traffic tickets, the more they were likely to lose to the state.

Drivers eager to avoid fines were delighted by the change. Local governments, particularly those traversed by interstates or heavily trafficked state roads, were less happy, arguing that the move was yet another instance of the state pulling badly needed funds out of communities still reeling from the recession.

This past spring, local governments won the latest battle over the state’s major roads when the General Assembly abruptly reversed its course, returning to its former stance that localities are entitled to keep the fines and fees they collect for violations of local ordinances.

“We’ve sent a message loud and clear that this is a local issue, that we’re not infringing on the State Police in any form,” said Del. Riley Ingram, the Republican representative for Hopewell in the House of Delegates and one of the sponsors of the 2016 bill that axed the practice of remitting local fines and fees to the state.

“Local governments have got to have money,” he said simply. “There’s no question about it.”

Policing for profit?

Although the state’s four-year collection of fines and fees ultimately affected 33 localities spread all across the commonwealth, its roots lie in Hopewell, where Sheriff Greg Anderson in 2006 began the “I-295 Highway Safety Program,” an initiative that posted deputies along the truncated sections of the interstate that pass through the city to aggressively ticket speeders.

Anderson’s program was possible thanks to a provision of Virginia law that allows localities to “adopt” portions of the Code of Virginia into their ordinances, making a violation of state law also a violation of local law. By adopting state motor vehicle code, localities can charge traffic violators under their local laws, thereby channeling the fees collected by the local district court into their general fund.

In Hopewell, the I-295 program was immediately successful, netting the city one to two million dollars annually. Others, however, were less pleased. Motorist safety organization AAA accused Hopewell of “policing for profit” and publicly warned out-of-state drivers about the stretch of interstate below the Appomattox.

“The intense speed enforcement by 11 sheriff’s deputies for 14 hours per day is suspect for an entity whose primary role is not traffic enforcement but rather courtroom security and other functions,” a AAA news release from April 2012 stated.

As the outcry increased in volume, Virginia Sen. John Watkins (R-10th) introduced a bill that would have prevented localities from collecting the fees associated with traffic violations on interstates or other federally funded roads and sent those funds directly from the courts to the state Literary Fund. His proposal was defeated, but it paved the way for amendments to the 2012 Appropriations Act that inaugurated the practice of taking a portion of some localities’ fines and fees for the Literary Fund.

Whether a locality had to give up some of its fines and fees was determined using a formula that was triggered when local collections equaled more than 50 percent of the locality’s total collections. If they did, they were classified as “excess,” and the state comptroller deducted half of that excess for use by the state before returning the remainder of the funds to the locality. Over time, the formula would become more stringent, pulling more and more localities under its umbrella.

Over the four years that localities were required to remit excess collections to the state, Hopewell paid a total of $478,893, according to figures from Virginia’s Auditor of Public Accounts. Emporia was the next hardest hit, paying more than $250,000 back to the state between 2012 and 2016. Other localities that were consistently forced to return funds included the cities of Falls Church and Fairfax and the county of Greensville. Within the Tri-Cities, Dinwiddie had to pay the state $11,494 in 2013, and Colonial Heights owed $15,771 in 2016.

While AAA hailed the passage of the remittance legislation, local governments immediately joined together in opposition, arguing both that the state was unlawfully depriving already-strapped communities of funding and that traffic law enforcement was a matter of safety.

An opinion from then-Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli declared that money collected from violations of local ordinances “constitute revenue of the locality,” not of the commonwealth, although it also declared that the General Assembly could pass legislation appropriating such money to the Literary Fund. Both the Virginia Municipal League and the Virginia Association of Counties vigorously opposed the remittances, with the VML in a March 2015 letter to Gov. Terry McAuliffe stating that the legislation “carpet bombs local law enforcement programs.” Criticism was also directed toward what the league called the “arbitrary formula” of the 2015 legislation, which “does not distinguish between types of roads, miles of roads to be patrolled, amounts of traffic, road congestion, motorist and pedestrian safety, and other factors.”

In Hopewell, both Anderson and his successor, current Hopewell Sheriff Luther Sodat, have publicly called the enforcement a matter of safety.

“Apparently (AAA’s) definition of a speed trap and what I know of one are two different things,” Sodat told The Progress-Index last week.

When it comes to I-295, the stated policy of the Hopewell Sheriff’s Office is not to ticket any driver going less than 80 mph on the road, which has a speed limit of 70 mph. Once the driver’s speed exceeds 85 mph, the deputy can issue a ticket for reckless driving.

Figures provided by Sodat to The Progress-Index record that in 2016, deputies issued an average of 835 tickets per month to interstate drivers going between 81 and 84 mph and about 316 tickets per month to drivers going 85 mph or above. Between January and August of this year, deputies have ticketed 369 drivers traveling over 90 mph and 27 additional drivers traveling over 100 mph. In total, tickets have been issued to over 9,200 drivers on the interstate since the beginning of the year — a not unusual count for the city since the I-295 Safety Program began.

Besides issuing traffic tickets, the program has also this year led to the arrest of 12 individuals on drug violations, the issuance of many dozen warrants and 1,262 warnings to motorists. Sodat sees the latter as evidence of the initiative’s basis in safety concerns, asking, “If this was a speed trap, wouldn’t we have written every one?”

Since the program’s creation, the city of Hopewell has consistently backed the initiative. In 2012, then-mayor Christina Luman-Bailey opened a City Council meeting with a statement on the program that declared, “Insinuations that this program is a petty ‘speed trap/money grab’ demonstrate an astounding ignorance of the facts. How could anyone who supports safe driving possibly object to tickets being issued to speeders of 81+ miles an hour?” The city’s proposed 2016 General Assembly legislative priorities described the remittances as “the state seizure of local fines and fees” and stated that the practice was “based upon a misinterpretation of the Code of Virginia.”

“If allowed to exist, these funds will continue to have a major impact on the city’s public safety program,” the document concluded.

Nevertheless, Sodat told The Progress-Index that his department’s funding was not linked to fluctuations in revenue related to state remittances.

“I get nothing for this program. I don’t get a pay increase,” he said. “My money would be the same whether this program were here or not.”

The effects of the remittances, said Del. Roslyn Tyler (D-75), a co-sponsor of the bill ending the practice, were felt beyond law enforcement in the localities affected.

“It affected their annual budget,” she said. “There was a shortfall in a lot of areas.”

Ultimately, Tyler and Ingram were able to win over enough legislators to their cause, with the majority approving a budget amendment package from McAuliffe that rejected the continuation of the remittances after July 1.

“Of course we’re happy the money is coming back to the localities,” said Sodat. Further, he said, his view of the value of the I-295 Safety Program has only been reinforced by recent reports of severe employee shortages within the Virginia State Police.

“Eventually,” he said, “it would have really hurt all the jurisdictions.”

•Sarah Vogelsong may be reached at svogelsong@progress-index.com or 804-722-5154.