Thursday, March 24, 2011

Revenue Not Flowing In Even After Ticket Strike Ends

Oh yeah, you can bet Recorders Court will get more funding.

Click here for more.

10 comments:

Exceptional Radio said...

Dekalb County has some of the dumbest residents and business owners we ever seen. The CEO wants to raise taxes in the name of service delivery and Dekalb Police is back to their who can write the most ticket games.

Well, boys get back to your sales agent jobs. Make that money for the county and you will be back here talking about why you don't have raises, respect and equipment. We will get back to encouraging everyone to fight their tickets rather than paying them. Atlanta Legal Aid, get ready, I am about to blow up your number to the listening public!

Anonymous said...

Hey people.....It is that Dekalb County has some of the dumbest people who reside and work in the county, that pretty much goes without saying. The truth of the matter is that in addition to having some of the dumbest people residing and working here, Dekalb also has some of the most crooked policitians who ever ran for public office in the country, not the county.

Having some the most stupid people around who own businesses, doesn't make matters any better. The BOC & the crooked bunch in Decatur pass favors onto theose stupid people in business.....The end result...less taxes, more friends.

Nothing in this county is going to get better anytime soon. This county has more Mexican, fast food, convienence stores, loan companies and everything else that caters to the class of people who don't pay very little or no taxes whatsoever.

The home owners who keep their homes up, pay their taxes, pay more than their fair share of everything else, are the ones who support the remainder of the county. It is a shame that the Southside of the county snubs their noses in the faces of those in the Northside.

This conversation can and will go on and on for time to come, and unless something drastic happens (new intelligent managers of government) come along, nothing is going to change....PERIOD

So, cross your fingers and pray for thats all one can do. It is a wish that Public Safety will drastically improve at some point, and maybe the rest of the county government will follow.

As stated above, only time will tell.

Bye for now!!

Anonymous said...

Its all about revenue to the county to make up the budget loss.

So we write everyone a ticket to keep this county afloat.

We are in a sad state of affairs when this county depends on ticket generating money for revenue.

The Precincts have set mandatory ticket quotas for each officer a day to write.

Special Operations have better lead in tickets or lose their TAKE HOME CARS .

Anonymous said...

I said this was going to happen several months ago when they told us the ticket furlough was over and that we were going back to the whole who can write the most game. It's a mockery of a sham really. Officers who write buttloads of tickets, but barely answer any calls get praised while officers who answer tons of calls while they're out writing tickets get told to work harder and write tickets. The recorder's court has been backlogged for as long as I've been working here. An enormous influx of tickets has done nothing to help that. Ask a citizen who has received a traffic citation from us in the last year and actually gone to the court to pay it...it's usually not even in the system by the court date.
In addition to dumping all this on an already understaffed and overburdened recorder's court, the attempt to make up for lost revenue by writing more tickets is both wrong and pathetic. It's a band-aid fix that doesn't even cover part of the wound. Even if we write everyone in the county a ticket for something, it will not come close to making up for the tax revenue that's been lost in recent years with all the residents moving, foreclosures, business closings, and loss of Dunwoody.
Ah well, screw your armed domestic, let's get back to what really matters, writing tickets!

Anonymous said...

Everyone knows there is a place for traffic enforcement and a place for proactive policing. Unfortunately at the precinct level command staff they are getting confused. Most who have been here 3 years or less only know how to write a ticket and have no idea how to put bad guys in jail. Lets get back in the neighborhoods and remove scum from the streets like we used to. It is not our job to make the county its money. Who gives a shit how bankrupt we are, it doesnt matter if we bring in one million dollars a month or one thousand dollars a month in ticket revenue. Bottom line it will be misused or spent!!

Anonymous said...

You should have titled this post "Recorder's Court Brings In Record Revenue Despite Ticket Strike."

Even though there was a ticket strike, a functioning court system managed to clear most of a huge backlog of tickets and wound up increasing revenue to its highest point ever.

Exceptional Radio said...

Of course, when we ask DKPD officials about their ticket quota, they will deny one exist and quote that they are illegal in Georgia. But thanks to former APD Chief Richard "Do Nothing" Pennington, we call them performance standards. Back in 2007, CBS46 got inside footage from a DKPD officer who had a commander demand that officers write two tickets a day and Mekka Parrish went into overdrive trying to clean it up. Well, we have big news for Dekalb County next Wednesday night on the Atlanta Community Affair. We have a major announcement for the citizens. Tune in at 8/7central at
http://www.exceptionalradio.com/archives.htm

Anonymous said...

Aon4, that's interesting. Quota's are against Georgia law. I am sure any enterprising reporter could find out real fast if this is true.
I was in the middle of the Recorders Court software fiasco. The new software was scheduled to go on line and it was a POS. Two to three minutes to complete a transaction that should take no more than 10 seconds. As usual the software vendor was blaming the network. (In the IT biz, everyone always blames the network) The INET county network at the time was finest of its type available to a local government. Gigabit speed and the usual response was 1-5 milliseconds consistently. My research using some specialized diagnostics revealed the server response was horrible.
Some of the facts that came out from my investigations:
A small company in Alabama received the contract for the RC software. (why not use a local vendor instead of an out of state contractor?)
The vendor had already been paid for the software by Recorders Court, before it had been tested. RC had no financial "leverage" to force the vendor to fix the software.
The software was a scaled up version of software used in smaller counties with a fraction of the volume or size of the DeKalb data base.
The vendor refused to send a qualified analyst to troubleshoot the issue without further payment. (about a 1000 dollars a day plus expenses)
My recommendation to the Clerk of the court, Joyce Head was the software was unacceptable and should not be accepted until the slow server response was corrected.
The RC chief judge at the time was Judge Walker, could not find the cash to pay for the vendor to fix the issues, and found it politically expedient to go on line with the software rather than admit the software was totally fracked-up.
When I left nearly a year ago, that was the situation. The Vendor claiming the software should work and requiring the county to pay for fixing the issues, and Recorders Court refusing to pay.
I learned some lessons from the RC fiasco along with the 911 software issues.
Software contracts should never provide full payment for the software vendor before it is tested and deemed acceptable. (If the damn stuff doesn't work there is no incentive for the vendor to fix it)
Software vendors should be local or have a local staff to deal with the issues.
DeKalb is in the big leagues. Contracting important software contracts to small business with no experience in the size, scope or volume of DeKalb government transactions is a risky proposition at best.
If the RC and 911 software contracts had been bid to larger and more reliable vendors with experience in larger volume, for 25 percent more outlay, the county would be far better served.
Best of luck, mates! KenC

Anonymous said...

My fellow Officers, one thing to remember, you are a tax collector first and a police officer second in the eyes of the commissioners. why else would a watch run with 10 people but still see the need to pull 3 of the 10 off the street or to back each other to go on a 10-84to write tickets. Are those tickets being written in the name of public safety, HELL NO! The madness continues.

Anonymous said...

I'd like to know who will be promoted to replace Maj Ford?...oh let me guess; of course it will be one of Yarborough's boys, let's say "Capt Harris"..ummm

How about making Asst Chief Lane or Asst Chief Gassner cheif? Atleast, they would be fair and show compassion...

OMG!!!!what's next?
Like everyone else....Anonymous