County could net $2 million more from traffic fines

By Staff

Last year, Fairfax County Police began asking officers to cite county code, rather than state code, when issuing traffic citations. The code is duplicative in the majority of cases.

This small change could boost revenue from traffic fines by as much as $2 million this year, according to an Audit Committee report released Monday. When state code is cited, any fine is paid to the state, less court costs. When county code is cited, the county receives the full revenue from the fine.

Now, the county attorney's office and the police department are working to update county code so that it matches current state statutes. In the first nine months of 2007, about 19,000 traffic summonses cited state code because there was no corresponding county code to cite, the report said.

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