Eureka Police Department has partnered with Phoenix Group Information Systems to modernize parking enforcement ticket and payment processing for the City of Eureka.
In addition to replacing an outdated database with a web-based solution, citizens are now able to pay and contest parking tickets believed to be issued in error on a secured website.
Citizens can access the City of Eureka Parking Enforcement website at www.paymycite.com/eureka or through a link on the Eureka Police Department website.
Failure to pay parking tickets under the new system will result in vehicle registration being withheld with the Department of Motor Vehicles rather than being sent to a third party debt collector.
Individuals with outstanding parking fees are encouraged to contact Eureka Police Department Parking Enforcement at 707-441-4073. Payments are also accepted in person at Eureka Police Department, 604 C St. during office hours, Monday through Friday, 9:00 am to 4:00 pm, excluding holidays.
How much % percentage does Phoenix Group Information Systems receive for every dollar processed? Is this a gifting (loss) of public money? How much parking citations value is outstanding to warrant an outside business? Is Eureka that aloft to casually throw money to the wind? Who's idea was this -staff/council/??????
ReplyDeleteGood questions, all of them. I know other cities have chosen to hire (via contract) a private company to handle such fines because internal audits discovered how much the city was probably losing through mismanagement and/or outright theft. Add to that the problems cities can have with municipal employees work attitudes, higher salaries, pension costs and last but not least, very poor record keeping.
ReplyDeleteWould I like to see jobs kept in the city I lived in? In theory, yes. In practice, I've had to deal with municipal employees who I would have fired in an instant---except those employees know how to game the system.
Without an aggressive Grand Jury to look into each department and demand performance reports, no one will know how good some of the employees are...and aren't.
I think Eureka just took the easy way out. And hiring a bill collector can cost more and isn't always efficient.
It's probably a Net savings to the City as we don't need to pay employees to not do their jobs. Now if we can just get them to write tickets and use the money to to do maintenance.
ReplyDeleteGreat idea! Yet another reason to buy from Amazon and avoid downtown Eurtweaker.
ReplyDeleteJust get them off you porch before the urban tweekers do.
DeletePrivate companies also mean that not only do you get to pay an overdue (or forgotten about) fine, you get taken to collections too, as well as having your registration hijacked. That &75 fine can easily become $300, plus the tag fees. And possible "reinstatement" fees if the city doesn't CLEARLY spell out what's being collected. ~TMOB
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