I-Team Investigation: ‘Police Fees’
Nobody likes getting a ticket or seeing their car towed and impounded.
A KESQ News Channel 3 I-Team Investigation finds local police departments charge wildly different fees to the public when it comes to impound releases and fix-it tickets for equipment violations. Even obtaining a copy of a police report could cost you more, or less, depending on where you get it.
When it comes to fix-it tickets, you often won’t have to pay a bigger fine if you fix the problem with your vehicle in a timely manner. But that fix-it ticket must be signed off by a law enforcement officer.
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The I-Team requested documents from local law enforcement agencies to determine just how much they charge for this service, and why? What justifications do they have? Here’s what we found.
It’s free if you get that signature in Cathedral City unless you’re a resident dealing with a ticket from another agency. Then you’ll pay $10 dollars, or $20 dollars if you’re not a resident. It’s $27 dollars to get that same ticket signed off at the Riverside County Sheriffs Department. That cost could soar to $60 dollars per citation in Desert Hot Springs for the same service.
Desert Hot Springs Mayor Scott Matas said the high fee is on the books, but rarely charged.
Matas said, “We could charge a $60 dollar fee if we chose to. But it’s really more about the compliance, so if you fix that turn signal or take those tinting windows off we can sign those off. I don’t think any officer has a credit card machine with them that they’re charging that fee there, so.”
Signing off on a fix-it ticket is free in the cities of Indio and Palm Springs, also at the California Highway Patrol.
The I-Team also looked at the cost of collision reports. They are limited by law. Agencies are only allowed to recover their costs of producing them, with no profiting.
Still, there are some big differences. You’ll pay between $10 dollars and $40 dollars at the CHP depending on the report size. It’s $27 dollars in Indio, just $13 dollars at any Riverside County Sheriffs Department office, $1 dollar for the first page in Desert Hot Springs plus 25-cents for every additional page, 25-cents a page in Cathedral City, and just 11-cents a page in Palm Springs.
There are big differences in impound release fees. The CHP charges nothing to approve a vehicle’s release from impound, although the impound lot will charge you for its costs.
CHP Public Information Officer Jackie Quintero said, “We don’t have any fees to release a vehicle. The only fees we do have is to obtain a copy of a report.” Quintero added, “We feel that if people need stuff, we want to be the people they come to us and go ahead and get whatever they need.”
It’s the same story in Palm Springs. Impound releases are free from the city, but the tow yard will charge you a Vehicle Tow Charge of $164 dollars, then a storage charge of $55 dollars per day. It goes up from there. Desert Hot Springs charges $100 dollars per vehicle, not including tow and storage costs. Indio charges $265 dollars to release a vehicle from impound, not including tow and storage costs. Cathedral City charges $110 dollars for storage, $155 dollars for a 30-day hold, or $550 dollars if there’s a DUI arrest involving a collision. Then you still have to pay the impound lot. Finally, Riverside County and its contract cities will charge you a minimum of $92 dollars to release a vehicle plus the tow yard fees. It goes up to $145 dollars in Rancho Mirage, $150 dollars in Indian Wells and $165 dollars in Palm Desert.
Costs soar to $550 dollars in Cathedral City if there’s a DUI arrest involving a collision, $670 dollars in Indian Wells for all DUI impound releases, and $705 dollars in Palm Desert for all DUI impound releases plus tow yard costs.
Palm Desert Mayor Sabby Jonathan said, “You can see it includes 4 1/2 hours of deputy time, about a half hour of supervisor time. So it’s all about recovering the cost of processing this particular event.”
Jonathan says the city’s fee represents an actual cost because the city contracts with the Riverside County Sheriffs Department, and gets the bill.
“Their time is our money. And to process this particular event takes time. And our intent is to recover our cost, ” Jonathan said.
That cost is $708 dollars. Jonathan says they’re also trying to discourage drunk driving. “Let’s not lose sight of that. If you don’t want the fee, don’t drink and drive,” said Jonathan.
Desert Hot Springs performed a cost analysis at the end of 2014 revising fees to recover the cost of providing city services. Some fees were raised, others lowered. As is with the case in Palm Desert, the goal of these agencies appears to be not profit, but to simply to maintain budgets.
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