It's time to end red-light ticket fees

When Suffolk County began issuing red-light camera tickets in 2010, the $50 state-approved fee was the entire fine, and it was a reasonable one. 

But in 2013, the county added a $30 “administrative fee” that was neither fair nor legal. In New York, it’s against the law for governments to charge fees that exceed the cost of providing the service rendered, and the $7 million that the $30 fee brought in annually for Suffolk far outstripped the administrative cost of the program. What’s worse, the issue of adding additional fees was raised during the 2009 Assembly debate over approving 50 red-light cameras each for Suffolk and Nassau, and lawmakers were assured such fees could not be added.

But both counties did add them, using the fees as a disingenuous way to raise revenue even as county executives crowed, “No tax increases!”

So in 2016, Mount Sinai resident Robert McGrath sued Suffolk. And in 2020, a state Supreme Court judge handed down a decision that the fee was “void as a matter of law,” but stopped short of a final ruling. The judge said the financial implications of striking the fee down were so serious that the county had a right to be heard further on the issue.

The appeals process still hadn’t ended Tuesday when Republican Suffolk Legis. Rob Trotta introduced a bill to end the $30 fee that quickly passed. County Executive Steve Bellone says he’ll sign it, and since it passed with a veto-proof 12 votes, he’d be a fool not to. The only issue remaining for Suffolk is the $96 million in administrative fees it collected, which a judge could order repaid. 

In Nassau, though, the red-light fees are far steeper and the politics are far uglier, and a similar lawsuit has been filed.

Red-light tickets in Nassau cost $150: the $50 fine that’s fair, and a $45 “driver responsibility fee” and a $55 “public safety fee” that are not. Last year, when Democratic County Executive Laura Curran was in a fierce election battle with Republican Bruce Blakeman, the GOP-dominated Nassau County Legislature voted to end the fees, blowing a huge hole in Curran’s proposed 2022 budget.

She vetoed that, and the legislature failed to override the veto. The fees continued, and Curran lost to Blakeman by less than 2,000 votes. But Presiding Officer Rich Nicolello has not reintroduced the measure to end the fees since a theoretically sympathetic partymate moved into the county executive’s office, and says there are no plans to do so currently.

Such fickleness is not unusual. Cutting crucial budget funding is less attractive when it’s your budget and not your opponent’s. 

But Nassau has no right to this money. Suffolk has finally done the right thing. Nicolello and Blakeman should follow suit.