This Utah City’s Traffic Fines Pay for 15% of Budget

Have you ever done the thing where you get pulled over and when the cop is walking up to your car you pinch one of your toddlers to make them start crying and then when the cop gets there and looks in at your chaotic car with crying kids he feels bad for you and lets you go?

Shameful.

Who would do such a thing?

Apparently not the good folks of Sunset, Utah because they are getting hamboned by the police.

According to Brian Will of KUTV news:

"A new Utah State Auditor report shows 6 cities rely on traffic fines for 10%+ of their general fund. Sunset stands out — $500K in fines made up nearly 15% of its revenue last year. The figures raises questions about enforcement priorities — and police quotas. We're heading to one of the top towns tonight to find out more."

That's a ton of tickets.

Sunset has about 5,000 people, that means every one of them is paying a $100 ticket every year.

Jeez.

Apparently there's a rule that you can't have more than 25% of your city revenue coming from traffic tickets and everybody is well below that, but I'm surprised how high the percentage is.

Here's the rest and a link to the document

Top Ten Local Governmental Entities

Sorted by Traffic Fines as a Percentage of General Fund Revenue

Sunset City $502,013 14.9%

Mantua City $206,820 13.0%

Wellsville City $335,888 12.1%

Orderville Town $48,240 10.4%

Willard City $230,269 10.1%

Monticello City $278,995 10.0%

Vernal City $651,998 9.7%

Uintah City  $39,358 5.5%

Box Elder County $783,374 4.9%

Holladay City  $2,142,732 3.2%

Yow. Drive safe out there everybody. Especially if you're up ta Sunset!