Despite state law meant to prevent profit-driven enforcement, Polk County Sheriff’s Office collects $84 per hour reviewing violations – far exceeding deputy wages, while the school district rakes in millions.
New documents reveal the Polk County school bus camera enforcement program initially sold to the public as a safety program has quickly become a major moneymaker for the county. The Polk County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO), Polk County School District (PCSD), and private vendor Verra Mobility, which makes the cameras and owns the software behind the citations, appear to be earning substantial sums of money from the program.
State lawmakers, wary of offering financial incentives to companies and elected officials who might use the automated system to pad budgets and turn big profits, passed a state law last year making it illegal to reward companies on a per-citation basis. The initial contract between Polk officials and Verra Mobility had to be redrafted last fall after a report by The Capitolist exposed the illegal scheme.
The program moved forward anyway, with school officials and Verra Mobility working out a deal that, despite state law, still fills county coffers with proceeds from the automated program, including a controversial payment scheme between school officials and the sheriff’s office.
A spokesperson for Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd’s department initially denied the existence of the reimbursement scheme, but a signed agreement obtained by The Capitolist shows that Judd’s office signed the deal, not with Verra Mobility, but with Polk school officials, who then funnel reimbursement cash to Judd’s department.
The documents reveal that PCSO is billing the school district $84 per hour to review potential violations captured by Verra Mobility’s camera system. That rate is far above what most deputies earn. It’s not clear why school district officials agreed to such a lavish rate of reimbursement for what is effectively a law enforcement job in the first place, but the generous rate suggests that the amount of money being cranked out by the program is large enough that the school district can splurge.
Launched earlier this year, the program involves more than 500 school buses outfitted with cameras to catch drivers illegally passing stopped buses. When a potential violation is recorded, video footage is sent to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office for review by a deputy, who determines whether a citation should be issued. If approved, a $225 fine is mailed to the driver.
According to ABC Action News, in the first half of the school year, Verra Mobility reported 17,757 incidents to the sheriff’s office, of which 6,886 citations have been issued. That means PCSO is reviewing more than 10,000 flagged incidents that don’t even result in a citation—while still collecting $84 per hour for the review process.
Based on those numbers, Polk County Schools stands to collect about $3 million per year from the program, but it’s not clear how much of those dollars are being paid to the sheriff’s office to enforce the program.
No matter how much money ultimately gets collected, the sheriff’s office brings in a steady stream of revenue regardless of whether violations are upheld or dismissed—a financial model that raises serious questions about why Judd’s department is charging so much per hour. The $84-per-hour rate being paid to PCSO for reviewing potential violations appears to be far higher than the actual hourly pay of the deputies performing the work.
According to publicly available data, the starting wage for a Polk County deputy is $61,000 per year, or around $30-$40 per hour – significantly lower than the rate PCSO is being reimbursed for citation review. Even when factoring in benefits and administrative costs, it remains unclear why the sheriff’s office is collecting such a highly inflated reimbursement rate.
Despite its moneymaking potential, automated ticketing systems have proved incredibly unpopular with voters, with reports of widespread abuse and unfair enforcement spurring lawmakers across the country, including Florida, to move quickly to rein them in.
Lawmakers say that the intent behind Florida’s school bus stop-arm law was to remove financial incentives that could lead to aggressive or unfair enforcement against motorists. Lawmakers specifically banned private vendors from being paid per citation, fearing it would encourage profit-driven ticketing rather than genuine public safety efforts.
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