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Chattanooga: $50 fine limit hurts enforcemen

By: Michael Davis
(Contact)

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Sally Robinson

When the city cites an individual for a property code violation, illegal dumping or another infraction, the most a lawbreaker can be fined is $50 a day.

That amount is not nearly enough for city officials such as Beverly Johnson, administrator for the Department of Neighborhood Services and Community Development. The city spends on average $250 to fix up vacant property and that figure does not include staff time, fuel used to travel to and from the property and other costs, she said.

“Actually we’re not making money, we’re losing money,” Ms. Johnson said.

Cities and municipalities such as Chattanooga are limited in collecting money from lawbreakers because of a provision in the state constitution that sets the cap at $50. Officials say this low figure makes enforcement hard, because many violators would rather pay the fine than comply with the law.

“At the end of the day, they’re saving money by breaking the law,” said Councilwoman Sally Robinson, “and that’s wrong.”

A previous attempt to remove the cap in the state constitution failed to get the required number of votes in a November 2002 ballot referendum. Supporters of the change had cleared other hurdles: getting a majority vote in both houses of the 101st Tennessee General Assembly in 2000 and a two-thirds vote in the 102nd General Assembly two years later, according to the Tennessee Municipal League, which favored the amendment.

But to change the constitution, the referendum needed to get enough votes — yes or no — to reach a majority of the votes cast in the governor’s race. Referendums are farther down the ballot, resulting in a “drop-off” effect with not as many people voting on those questions, so the proposed amendment did not pass, said City Attorney Randy Nelson.

“We were very disappointed,” Mr. Nelson said. “Fifty dollars — that’s what it costs to go to a movie one night. That’s not much of a punishment for somebody’s dog mangling somebody.”

The $50 limit has not been altered since the state constitution went into effect in 1796, according to the Tennessee Municipal League.

Because of the fine limit, many criminal cases go to General Sessions Court, where higher penalties can be assessed, Mr. Nelson said.

“It has increased the work load,” he said.

In 2001, the state Supreme Court ruled that violators in non-jury cases cannot be fined more than $50 for punitive intent, according to newspaper archives. The decision came after some court cases, including one in Chattanooga where driver Kevin Davis was fined $300 for reckless driving, according to newspaper archives.

Attorney Jerry Summers, who represented Mr. Davis, said local government officials simply want to bring in more revenue.

“When you start messing with the justice system, it turns into cash-register justice,” said Mr. Summers, an opponent of efforts to change the $50 limit.

But Mr. Nelson said the constitutional amendment campaign was not about raising money. He noted that the 2002 amendment stipulated that the state legislature set the cap.

“We’re not asking for authority to go up to $10,000 or anything,” Mr. Nelson said. “We just want there to be a mechanism that as inflation goes along, that that amount goes up in accordance with the times.”

Legislation for a new try at a constitutional amendment failed this spring to get out of the budget subcommittee of the House Finance, Ways and Means Committee. Rep. Kent Coleman, D-Murfreesboro, who sponsored a House joint resolution to change the fine cap to $500, said the legislation may have died in committee because many lawmakers disapprove of modifying the constitution “on a whim.”

If the next two legislatures approve such a proposal, the soonest it could come before Tennessee voters would be November 2014, Carole Graves, communications director for the Tennessee Municipal League, said in an e-mail.

Rep. Kent Coleman said he plans to introduce similar legislation next year that may have different language but will have the same intent.

“Fifty dollars is pretty much an outdated fine for most offenses,” Rep. Coleman said.

Chattanooga City Council members recently raised the fine-cap issue with Rep. Gerald McCormick, R-Chattanooga, when the county legislative delegation chairman visited a committee meeting. Rep. McCormick said last week that the nine-member council can approve a resolution to the delegation — with at least a two-thirds vote — in support of a constitutional amendment.

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