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Q&A
Council member Williams questions Department of Finance on fine assessments and data collection practices
4:53:24
·
4 min
Council Member Nantasha M. Williams inquires about the Department of Finance's practices regarding fine assessments and data collection, particularly focusing on potential disparities among different communities. Commissioner Preston Niblack and First Deputy Commissioner Jeffrey Shear respond, explaining their role in collecting fines rather than issuing them and discussing the availability of data on parking tickets.
- The Department of Finance collects fines but doesn't issue violations for most cases.
- Data on parking tickets is available at the police precinct level, but not routinely analyzed for community disparities.
- Commissioner Niblack expresses willingness to further examine and discuss the data on fine collection across different areas.
Nantasha M. Williams
4:53:24
And the last question which is very broad but I'm gonna go for it.
4:53:28
Your office assesses fines for different types of things.
4:53:35
Do you ever assess whether or not you are fining certain communities over other ones?
Preston Niblack
4:53:44
So in general, I'm I'm gonna draw a distinction.
4:53:48
We don't we don't issue violations or fines for I mean, we will for nonpayment of taxes or that kind of thing.
4:53:59
But in terms of other ECB type violations or whatever that or parking ticket, etcetera, we don't issue the violations.
4:54:07
We are just in charge of collecting.
4:54:10
I am very mindful of efforts our collection efforts and how they are focused.
4:54:19
We don't, you know, for example in our audit process, we're not interested in going after small taxpayers.
4:54:24
We're interested in going after larger taxpayers who may, you know, be not fully complying with the law at a scale that actually makes some sense for us to pursue.
4:54:38
I'm not going after someone who made a small error and underpaid by $100 As I say, I think, you know, we're in the property tax realm, we're very constrained by state law and we really would like to we think the best approach here would be to change the state law in order to provide more tax relief to low and moderate income homeowners.
4:55:01
So there again, it's like that's not fully within our hands to change unilaterally.
4:55:06
It's not at all within our hands to change unilaterally, but we wanna work with the legislature and with you all to enact reforms that would be beneficial, we think, to communities that have historically may have been overtaxed.
Nantasha M. Williams
4:55:19
Thank you and yes I appreciate that distinction, but on your end do you get the data around where these fines are occurring and you did mention auditing, do you audit for that?
4:55:32
So like a parking ticket?
Preston Niblack
4:55:36
We I mean we have information
Nantasha M. Williams
4:55:38
Because I know it's an enforcement side and there's probably a conversation to be had with the NYPD as an example, you are also kind of collecting the money and so wondering if you do do any audits to determine whether or not these fines are equitably dispersed amongst all New Yorkers?
Preston Niblack
4:55:59
I think we have information regarding parking tickets at the council district level.
4:56:07
Let me let First Deputy Commissioner Scheer.
Jeffrey Shear
4:56:10
We have information on parking tickets at the police precinct level.
Preston Niblack
4:56:16
Oh, okay.
Jeffrey Shear
4:56:18
We don't have information.
4:56:20
Since it is parking tickets, we don't know the income of the motorists, for example, whoever received the tickets.
4:56:30
We don't
Nantasha M. Williams
4:56:32
But you know the community, right?
4:56:34
So would you, and do you do you ever make those type of assessments when you have the data?
4:56:39
Do you ever look and say like, oh I see that in the council member Brewer's district, we collected x amount of dollars and then I don't know council member Stevens district we collected x amount of dollars.
4:56:53
Like, do you look at that and say do you make any assessments?
4:56:58
Do you look at that data?
Preston Niblack
4:57:00
We don't routinely do that.
4:57:05
No, we don't routinely do that mostly because it's actually the data is somewhat hard to collect that way for us, so it's a bit of an effort.
4:57:16
But we have the ability to do that to some extent, and I can come back to you with, you know, some thoughts.
Diana I. Ayala
4:57:23
Yeah.
4:57:23
I would love
Preston Niblack
4:57:24
to do that.
4:57:24
If I'll also say that I know I live in council member Brewer's district, and a lot more tickets could be written
Nantasha M. Williams
4:57:31
I would love I would love if we could continue this conversation because I do think it's important as a city, again, we want to spend our money in equitable fashion across the boroughs, across communities, across different demographics, but I think it's also equally important to look at how we are collecting money as well.
Preston Niblack
4:57:51
Understood.
Diana I. Ayala
4:57:51
Thank you.