SEMO issuing fewer tickets

Shannon Baker has been ticketed countless times for parking violations in her undergraduate and graduate career at Southeast Missouri State University, resulting in fines totaling nearly $2,300. Baker, who is from St. Louis and lives in Cape Girardeau, said the cost doesn't include the hundreds of dollars she has paid in permits to park legally on campus over the years.

The situation frustrates Baker, who argues that it's nearly impossible for students to go through college without incurring parking violations.

"It's all their money, and it used to be my money," she said of the revenue the university received as a result of the parking tickets she accumulated.

The university levied $500,791 in parking fines in fiscal year 2003. Since then, the amount has decreased. In 2006, the university levied $425,087 in parking fines, Southeast budget director Mona Hughey said. Revenue from fines goes to help fund transit and parking operations at the school, she said.

A sunset was reflected off car windows in the parking lot at Kent Library on the campus of Southeast Missouri State University. Most of the lots on campus are full, which causes students to park in the faculty-only or other areas, resulting in parking tickets. University officials said fewer tickets have been written in recent years. (Diane L. Wilson ~ dlwilson@semissourian.com)

Doug Richards, director of public safety at Southeast, said most students don't incur the fines that Baker has. "That is extremely unusual," he said.

Actually, the university has issued fewer traffic tickets in recent years, reflecting a drop in parking violations, he said. "We write tickets for one reason, and that is to enforce parking," Richards said.

In 2001, campus police and student ticket writers employed by Richards' department issued 56,333 parking tickets. In 2005, the university issued 23,027 parking tickets, which is more than 7,000 fewer than in 2004, department records show. Most were issued to students.

Richards credits additional parking, preferred parking permits, the campus shuttle bus system and higher fines with reducing the number of violations.

In 2001, the university had 4,623 parking spaces for residence-hall and commuter students, faculty and staff. Today, the campus has slightly more than 1,000 additional spaces, Richards said.

Construction of a parking garage and revamping of the Towers complex parking lot have helped provide more parking, he said.

But Baker said that isn't enough to handle the increase in the number of students. Southeast's enrollment has climbed to 10,477, an increase of 1,125 students since fall 2001.

Higher enrollment at the university's outlying higher education centers accounts for some of the increase and doesn't affect parking on the main campus, school officials said.

Students can't ignore their parking tickets. They must pay the fines each semester in order to enroll for the next semester, and at the end of their stay in college, they must pay the fines before they can graduate. Nonstudent visitors who park illegally are ticketed as well, but the university can't force them to pay the tickets, school officials said.

The university's board of regents doubled fines for many parking violations in April 2002. Students who park on campus without a permit now pay $20 for a first offense. Previously it was $10 for the violation.

At the time, school officials said the increased fines were designed to encourage students to park in their assigned lots. Many students were choosing to park illegally and pay the fines, officials said.

Baker said she isn't alone in the number and amount of parking fines she has received. She said a former roommate racked up more than $2,000 in parking fines in a single semester and paid for them with student loans. Students can obtain student loans that will cover all school expenses, including parking tickets.

She contends Southeast doesn't have sufficient parking for students to park close to academic buildings where they have their classes.

Perimeter parking lots aren't convenient for students, she said. "When I lived in Towers, I often had to leave my room an entire hour before I had to be at work just to get to my car and be on time to my job at Wal-Mart," Baker said.

Many students on her floor who had preferred parking never left except to go shopping, go home for the weekend or to get fast food, she said. "Their cars were just clogging up spaces that I could have been using on a regular basis."

In Baker's view, parking tickets are inevitable for Southeast students. She points to the relatively small lot that serves Kent Library. Most of those spaces are reserved for faculty and staff, she said, meaning students who go to the library to study often end up with parking tickets.

Students are fined $40 if they park in a preferred lot without a preferred parking permit. Subsequent violations carry an $80 fine. Preferred parking spaces are in lots closest to campus buildings.

Southeast charges students $135 for a preferred parking permit for an academic year, $85 for a perimeter parking permit and $45 for an evening-only parking permit.

Richards said he understands students' frustrations.

"I am not going to sit here and say it is ideal," he said. "We have to manage the spaces we have."

But judging from the decrease in tickets issued, Richards believes parking is less of a problem today than it was five years ago. "That was our goal," he said.

Baker, who first started school as a freshman in August 1999 and will graduate in December with a master's degree in biology, said she's looking forward to moving back to St. Louis and away from a place where parking tickets have plagued her.

mbliss@semissourian.com

Southeast Missouri State University levied a little more than $425,000 in parking tickets, like the one pictured here, in fiscal year 2006.FRED LYNCH flynch@semissourian.com

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