St. Louis City Spends 93 Cents to Bring in $1 of Parking Revenue

The company that manages parking for the city, Hudson and Associates, has donated to Mayor Tishaura Jones' campaign

May 23, 2023 at 12:50 pm

RYAN KRULL

Metered parking in the Grove.

For anyone who forgot to move their car on street cleaning day last year and paid that $15 ticket, only about 42 cents of that fine went to the city's general coffers. And the $4.45 it costs for two hours of parking at some spots downtown? That nets the city's general fund roughly 12 cents.

This is according to data compiled by the Treasurer's Office and presented yesterday to the Budget and Public Employees Committee of the Board of Aldermen.

A breakdown of the Parking Division's revenue shows that in fiscal year 2022 the Parking Division within the Treasurer's Office had $15.4 million in expenditures and brought in $16.6 million in revenue, according to the documents obtained by the RFT. That adds up to the city spending roughly 93 cents to bring in $1 of parking revenue

Of that $1.1 million in net income, only 40 percent — $472,000 — was sent to the city's general fund.

"That means around five cents of every dollar in parking fees goes to the general fund," says 8th Ward Alderwoman Cara Spencer, who is the chair of the committee.

Spencer says that "when done right" parking can be lucrative for city coffers, but that's not what's happening now.

"The money generated on our streets should go into them," she says. "Especially given their current condition."

City Treasurer Adam Layne told the committee yesterday that, "There are many costs to parking and parking enforcement, and there's also more operations than the average person sees."

Layne also said that much of $6 million for contract services goes toward the meter technology as well as services and upgrades to the meters.

Other documents prepared by the Treasurer's Office show that the budget for fiscal year 2023 includes more than $6 million in "contractual and other services," a little more than $7 million for personnel and about $3.8 million in "non-operating expenses."

(The documents prepared by the Treasurer's Office are, at first blush, a little difficult to parse as a notation at the bottom says "All amounts are in millions," which if true would mean that the Parking Division's expenditures on personnel are equal to the entire economy of Montenegro. The RFT is assuming that the documents should read "All amounts are in thousands.")

The RFT reached out to Layne for comment but has not heard back . We will update the story if we do.

Spencer says the Parking Division "is a department with a function, parking, which derives revenue off city infrastructure and the city's right of way on streets that are in deplorable condition for failing to invest in their infrastructure."

She adds, "I just cannot believe how little they returned to us.”

RFT contributor Mike Fitzgerald reported in March that Layne planned to renew the controversial parking-management contract with Hudson and Associates LLC, a company that had, along with its CEO, donated $38,000 to Mayor Tishaura Jones’ political campaigns.

According to Fitzgerald, the contract attracted scrutiny because it promised the company $2.35 million a year regardless of performance.