Ticket Revenue Is Up 39%

Growth in Traffic Aids County Budget

With traffic congestion clogging Loudoun County's major arteries, and large planned communities still cropping up, the sheriff's office has reported a 39 percent increase in revenue from traffic fines and forfeitures over a two-year period.

Through most of fiscal 2009, which ends Wednesday, the county had collected a little more than $2.1 million in revenue from fines and forfeitures, according to figures provided this month by the department through an open-records request. The comparable figure for fiscal 2007, the last full year for which data are available, was a little more than $1.5 million.

The majority of the revenue for both years is from fines from sometimes costly speeding violations and other moving traffic infractions, not forfeitures, said Kraig Troxell, a spokesman for the sheriff's office. Forfeitures include unclaimed items confiscated by the sheriff's office and later sold by the county through its Surplus Store.

Loudoun Sheriff Stephen O. Simpson attributed the increase to the growth in traffic on major roadways, including routes 7 and 50, and to several vacant positions being filled at the agency, including nearly three dozen administrative and patrol jobs in the past year. The sheriff's office also fared well in this year's county budget process, avoiding many of the personnel and operations cuts that befell other agencies.

"It's a combination of things, but it's certainly true that we're growing and everyone's growing around us," Simpson said. "If you look at the growth, especially west of us, from West Virginia and Winchester through Loudoun, you're seeing a lot more people driving through."

The number of requests to the county to set up speed traps in neighborhoods has held steady in recent years, said Terrie Laycock, Loudoun's director of the Office of Transportation Services. And pleas for additional traffic-calming measures from the Virginia Department of Transportation, including multi-way stop signs, have continued to pour into her office, Laycock said.

"Particularly in neighborhoods where you have children out playing and people crossing the street, we're still getting complaints," Laycock said. "People want to feel safe, and they're not going to with someone speeding through the neighborhood."

As the county has grown, calls to increase the number of patrol officers have swelled. With 200 full-time patrol deputies, Loudoun is only slightly above its county-mandated staffing level of 0.8 sworn deputies per 1,000 residents.

"I know that staffing at the sheriff's office is not optimal," said Supervisor Stevens Miller (D-Dulles), chairman of the county board's public safety committee. "If adding staff and filling vacant positions is the primary reason we're raising revenue, I'm not going to resist it."

This month, eight cyclists were ticketed by Loudoun sheriff's deputies during a charity race for multiple sclerosis, prompting sharp criticism from a handful of residents who said the tickets were in poor form. But Simpson said an increase in traffic complaints, not a need to raise more money, has fueled the rise in ticket revenue.

"With more construction and these neighborhoods filling up, you're going to get more people and more people speeding through it," he said.