Officer tackles ticket mixup
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By PATRICIA MINICHIELLO Herald Staff - Published: January 12, 2009
John Paul Faignant, a police captain and second constable with the Rutland Town Police Department, is planning a trip.
Later this month, he will travel from Rutland Town to White River Junction to Montpelier with a fresh batch of speeding tickets in hand.
Faignant's journey is an attempt to sort out the traffic ticket nightmare that has haunted several municipalities since 2007, when a misallocation of revenue first surfaced on the state level.
"I'm going to track a batch of my own tickets through every individual that ticket comes in front of so that we have names and numbers of people we can call when we have a question," Faignant said, adding that he plans to hand-deliver the tickets to White River Junction, then Montpelier.
Part of Faignant's mission is to find out what portion of the revenue is distributed to local municipalities and what portion the state retains.
"I'm also going to get the formula by which the fines are distributed locally and what (portion of the revenue) the state keeps," he said.
The mislabeling of tickets has occurred on a continuing basis since 2001.
Officials have said mistakes were made by law enforcement officers who wrote the wrong name of the municipality on their traffic tickets. By writing Rutland, instead of Rutland City, all traffic ticket revenue was administered to Rutland Town.
In addition to problems in Rutland City and Town, labeling errors occurred in Barre City and Town, Newport City and Town and Swanton City and Town.
With regard to Rutland, the misallocation of funds resulted in a total debt of $262,772.83. As it stands now, the town has paid back $145,085, but still owes the city $117,687.83 and will continue to chip away at the balance during the next four years.
On the state level, a new protocol was issued last year, according to Rutland Town Police Chief John Sly, to tighten up ticket processing procedures.
Sly said the new protocol requires officers to send traffic tickets to the judicial bureau within 30 days of issuing the violation. He said the town had "missed" that 30-day window in the past, which resulted in dismissal of tickets altogether.
Sly did not know how many tickets have been dismissed because of an inability to meet the 30-day window, but he and Faignant said the town's police department recently changed its processing method to ensure that all traffic tickets are mailed to the Judicial Bureau within the 30 days.
"We've changed the procedure, so that each officer is batching their own tickets," Faignant said.
The changes at the state and local level are the impetus behind Faignant's trip.
Faignant said when he returns he'll give the Select Board a report of how the tickets are administered.
Stanley Rhodes III, chairman of the Rutland Town Select Board, said Faignant is going "above and beyond" to investigate the traffic ticket "nightmare."
"We hold each other accountable on the local level and it's about time someone on the state level steps forward and says 'we're accountable' and gives us some direction as to where the money is going," Rhodes said.
Contact Patricia Minichiello at patricia.minichiello@rutlandherald.com.
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