University of Connecticut Parking Services increased parking citations by up to $20 after accumulating $6 million in parking permits and parking citations during the 2023-2024 school year to fund the department.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the volume of tickets was much lower, according to UConn Parking Services Director Andy Kelly. Kelly theorized this is a result of an increase in students who didn’t want to buy a parking permit and would rather take their chances getting a parking citation. This has caused Parking Services to increase the fines for each parking ticket during the current school year. Citation rates are approved by Kelly’s boss, Stan Nolan, Interim Associate Vice President for Facilities Operations.
“Feedback that we got and what we saw operationally was that the citation rates, the fines, weren’t high enough to dissuade the behavior. So, we saw that from behavior. We heard that consistently from folks across campus. So, we did some fairly significant increases in fines. The biggest target for us is no UConn permit, because those are the folks that are just rolling the dice. So, in order to dissuade that behavior, we increased that fine [to] $50,” said Kelly.
Increased fines this year include lot parking, which increased by $20, according to Kelly. The original fine was $30, and the current fine is $50. The parking garage fine was only increased by $10, now being $40 in comparison to the prior $30 citation rate. Kelly said this is because garages are open to the public through meter use. Parking in a designated Americans with Disabilities Act spot, which is marked by a blue handicap sign, is capped at a $150 fine.
The $6 million used to fund parking services is the result of 8,020 permits bought by students, 7,307 permits purchased by staff during the 2023-2024 school year, and 44,885 parking citations issued by Parking Services employees according to UConn Parking Services records. According to Kelly, the department is a self-funded organization, which accumulates their budget through permit revenue and citation revenue.
The revenue generated from parking permits funds the upkeep of lots and garages. According to Kelly, Parking Services has spent about $6 million on the upkeep of the UConn parking garages over the past three summers. These garages include North Garage and South Garage. Permit revenue also goes toward the Parking Services staff, which is quite small according to Kelly. The department includes Kelly, two other state employees and student staff.
Kelly mentioned that garages will undergo limited maintenance this summer, which is expected to be the final summer for this upkeep. A great deal of money also goes toward updating signage and striping parking spots. The I lot, Y lot, N lot, and F lot had renovated signage recently according to Kelly.
Cleaning the garages is another task of upkeep for Parking Services. For cleaning, they use a vendor, LAZ Parking. LAZ Parking is a parking management company. LAZ puts up signage, cleans the garage (including power washing each garage), and restripes the garages. Additional expenses from LAZ go through other departments, according to Kelly. For example, when they are working athletic events, UConn Athletics is responsible for financial compensation.
Parking tickets go toward a variety of different expenses. Parking Services accumulated $760,895 from student tickets and $372,485 from non-student tickets during the 2023-2024 school year, according to UConn Parking Services records. Student citations are determined based on vehicles registered in the parking services system. If a vehicle isn’t registered, they will reach out to the state DMV to try to connect it to a student.
The money attained through student tickets goes toward people and systems that help Parking Services operate, according to Kelly. Since Parking Services has grown over the years, they have added more systems, therefore increasing the costs of running the department. The individuals who are on campus administering tickets are employed by LAZ Parking. The vehicles that are used to administer citations are paid for by UConn Parking Services as well. The individuals employed by LAZ Parking are paid an hourly rate through a contract dictated by LAZ, which uses money from UConn Parking Services. Kelly said that vehicles are often utilized until they fail, and the only vehicles that Parking Services will be utilizing in the future are electric vehicles.
“Usually, we run them into the ground, so they’re not really worth anything,” said Kelly.
Anything that is left over in the student citation revenue after utilizing money for the department goes to UConn’s general scholarship fund. Last year the amount of money given to the fund was about half a million dollars, according to UConn Parking Services manager Martha Funderburk.
According to UConn Parking Services records, there were 44,885 citations issued, 6,778 citations submitted for appeal during the 2023-2024 school year and 3,174 citations accepted for appeal. The appeal committee resides outside of parking services jurisdiction, meaning parking services is not involved in handling appeals. The committee consists of UConn employees, whose identities are confidential.
Non-student parking ticket revenue is up to Parking Services themselves. They often use this money to reinvest in parking services, according to Kelly. Last year, leftover revenue was reinvested in different parking lots. Refurbishing equipment and upgrades also come out of this revenue.
“Our number one mission is just to make sure that people that pay for parking can park where they paid to park. We’re not a fundraising scheme,” said Kelly, “If people were all following the rules and we weren’t finding people breaking the rules we would reduce the money we spend on enforcement immediately, because again we’re not a money-making machine, we’re out to make sure people can park where they pay to park.”
Supply and demand are important factors when considering the costs of parking permits, according to Kelly. For example, the garages are in high demand, so they cost much more than regular commuter parking, which is less appealing, according to Kelly.
Kelly said they are not trying to take in more money than the department requires, but they try to figure out how much they need and how much it costs to maintain the lots and garages. RS Means, a global database system which allows departments to analyze the amount of costs, is used to help determine the amount of money Parking Services needs to maintain the department.