Controversy Aside, We All Agree: Chicago’s Ticketing System Needs Permanent Change.
On Friday, the Transit Table Coalition, which includes Chicago Appleseed and the Chicago Council of Lawyers, released a statement regarding a series of news reports that the City of Chicago issued 35,000 parking tickets during a pause in ticketing announced by the Mayor’s office and intended to ease economic tensions created by the pandemic shutdown.
Regardless of this particular incident, regressive fines & fees—along with disproportionate enforcement across racial lines—are a significant barrier to equity and economic justice in Cook County. Parking enforcement plays a major role in policies that create cycles of debt as we try to fund services from the pockets of people who can least afford it and would most benefit from well-funded, people-first services.
The full statement of the Transit Table Coalition follows.
Chicago’s Mayor came under fire this week because 35,000 parking tickets were issued during an “emergency pause” announced by her office. The pause was designed to provide relief for Chicagoans facing an economic and health crisis that dwarfs anything in modern history. We celebrate that move. Halting ticket enforcement for non-safety issues and suspending debt collection tactics, such as seizing tax refunds, makes perfect sense during the pandemic—especially given the clear evidence that the very same communities of color most harmed by COVID-19 in Chicago are also those most targeted for ticket enforcement and disparately thrown into financial ruin by excessive fines and fees.
We are the Transit Table, a coalition of community members and advocacy groups that has been monitoring Chicago’s messy ticketing trap for years. The argument over whether the ticketing pause was confusing is largely a distraction. Instead, let’s tackle an issue that we all agree is a huge problem. This starts with slashing the City’s excessive ticket debts in three ways: lowering fine and fee costs, capping interest, and creating a statute of limitations.
It makes sense for the Tribune to shine a light on tickets issued when people thought ticketing was on hold—people were harmed and misled, even if the Mayor tried to make some clarifications about what would be paused. However, we must also decry the profit-driven private parking meter company that obstructs attempts to reform Chicago’s ticketing system. We must also question whether it makes sense for the Chicago Police Department to continue enforcing regressive taxes like the City Sticker, given evidence that they disproportionately target Black neighborhoods.
However, there are no temporary or “small” fixes that will break Chicago’s harmful reliance on raising revenue through fines, fees, and debt collection practices that drive poor people and people of color deeper into poverty, debt, and unemployment. Chicago has piled such excessive ticket debt on its residents that the Northern District of Illinois leads the nation in Chapter 13 bankruptcies as people try to stay afloat. These practices go far beyond the pandemic ticketing pause, and undermine trust in local government and law enforcement.
Current City leadership has taken some steps towards reform, including establishing the Fines, Fees and Access Collaborative, passing ordinances to reform towing and some forms of impoundment, and supporting the License to Work Act. Yet, these reforms focus downstream, on what happens after the tickets have piled up and families have already spiraled into debt.
Now, we need upstream, innovative change. Chicago must stop its two-faced game of claiming to invest in Black and Latinx communities while simultaneously using them as an ATM, extracting cash through excessive fines and fees. The City’s way of “business” both hurts already marginalized families and communities economically, and fails to provide an effective and sustainably balanced budget. The solution to our City’s economic woes will not come from extracting even more resources from our most disinvested and exploited communities.
Right now, Chicago is participating in a national cohort of Cities & Counties for Fine and Fee Justice, where it is joining nine other localities across the nation in exploring reforms to move away from regressive and racially inequitable fines and fees. This moment presents an opportunity for Chicago to be an example to the nation. We strongly encourage the City to move past the current ticketing controversy and take advantage of this opportunity for transformative, community-driven change.
To that end, the Transit Table coalition lifts up the following proposals to reduce the enormous ticket debt burden on our neighborhoods.
1. Significantly lower parking and vehicle base fines.
A fifth of Chicagoans live in poverty. But most ticket costs are set without any regard for ability to pay. Chicago leaders must not raise ticket costs, fines, or fees in a desperate attempt to balance the budget. Ticket costs must be lowered dramatically across the board, and affordability must be taken into account when setting costs of tickets, fines, and fees in the future.
2. Cap late fines and penalties at 10%.
The City must end the automatic doubling of all ticket costs for missing the payment deadline. This process operates effectively as a 100% interest rate after just a few months of nonpayment. Instead, any penalty should be reasonable, for example, 5% after two months of nonpayment. Payment plans should include even more sliding scale and ability-to-pay options so that no one is turned away with a payment that’s too small to qualify.
3. Create a 4-year Statute of Limitations on ticket debt collections.
Chicago is notorious for tracking down motorists with ticket debt from many years or decades past. Statutes of limitations exist for many kinds of debt, including medical debt, credit card debt, and student loan debt. There is no reason for ticket debt to last so long. In fact, other major cities like New York and Los Angeles have statutes of limitations for their ticket debt. This would immediately clear a large amount of the City’s uncollectible ticket debt.
Passing these three reforms would be a win for communities struggling to gain footing after the devastation of decades of disinvestment coupled with the earth-shattering effects of COVID-19. Make no mistake—these reforms would also help the City with its huge budget gap by allowing debt-burdened families the chance to thrive. It would right-size the City’s accounting ledgers to write off debt that is expensive and ineffective to collect, and it can restore some of the broken trust of residents on the South and West Sides.
Chicago must release Black and Brown communities from the smothering weight of excessive ticketing and collections—permanently. We cannot afford to continue trying to squeeze cash out of people who have nothing left.
About the Transit Table
The Transit Table is a coalition of Illinois social service providers, advocates, and other stakeholders working to eliminate transportation barriers that keep people out of work and in poverty. Among the Transit Table members are:
ACLU of Illinois
Americans for Prosperity– Illinois
Chicago Jobs Council
Chicago Urban League
Collaboration for Justice: Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice & Chicago Council of Lawyers
Community Organizing and Family Issues (COFI) / POWER-PAC Illinois
Economic Security for Illinois
Heartland Alliance for Human Needs & Human Rights
Revolution Workshop
Shriver Center on Poverty Law
Woodstock Institute