Metro employees fired for hiding 3,400 traffic tickets in a drawer
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I got this email from a viewer who wishes to stay anonymous. But this email is why I got involved with this story.
Hi Andy.
I was driving my husband’s truck on Nolensville Road when I was pulled over and ticketed for an expired license plate. The Officer was very nice - he said we should wait a week before going downtown to pay the ticket. So a week later I took off work for (what turned out to be) a very long lunch, paid for parking, stood in line for over an hour only to be told that the ticket was not yet entered into the system. The lady said I should call back every two or three days to see if the ticket has been entered before the 45 day expiration. Everytime I called I was told it had not been entered and if it was not entered before the 45 day expiration date then I would not have to pay… Finally on the 45th day I called and was told yet again that it was not entered and I did not have to pay the ticket. I received a letter today (June 15th, 2009) stating that the city was extending the original expiration date and that I did have to pay the ticket afterall. Now normally I would not blink an eye and just pay the ticket. However, it does not seem right to have to pay the ticket now because I got the ticket 9 MONTHS AGO… on Septembner 28, 2008… I called today and told the lady that I had tried and tried in good faith to pay the ticket and was told over and over that I could not pay it because it was not entered into the system yet - now nine months later the city wants me to pay saying they changed the expiration date… No THAT’S MESSED UP!!!
Joy Warner is a 2nd viewer who tells the same tale.
Long story short; Warner says she is pulled over for expired tags. She says she gets her car inspected that same day. She keeps calling the traffic bureau to find out about the ticket. The clerk keeps telling her that her ticket is not in the system. Months go by, and still Joy’s ticket is not in the system. Joy Warner wants to take care of this problem, but she cannot because the system doesn’t know where her ticket is. Joy Warner says this is messed up.
It turns out it is Messed Up.
Bill Cartwright is Chief Deputy at the Traffic violations bureau.
Cartwright tells Messed Up that 2 employees hid as many as 3,400 tickets in desk drawers.
The tickets should have been processed, but they were not.
Cartwright says the women were assigned a certain number of tickets to process each day, but instead, Cartwright says they tossed 15 to 20 tickets a day into a desk drawer. Cartwright says the women could never catch up and continued to throw tickets into the desk drawer, hiding them from supervisors for as long as 90 days. Cartwright says when it was finally discovered, some 3,400 tickets had not been put in the system.
“Unfortunately we found those citations locked up in 2 desks of two ex-employees. Basically we have a spread sheet that we keep for all our data entry to make sure processing and ticket distributing is done fairly among all data entry individuals,” Cartwright explains. “So if I assign you 100, and you come to me at the end of the day and tell me that you inputted 80, what that tells me is that I have 20 I need to redistribute the following day. But what it doesn’t take into account, is that you didn’t tell me the truth and you sand bagged 15 today and you made the same poor decision the next day and sand bagged another 20 and it snowballs and there is your 3,000 tickets,” Cartwright says.
Cartwright tells me that the bureau has implemented a scanning system to prevent this from happening again.
“Every citation that comes into the clerk’s office, we scan. And I give you 100, and now if you say you did 80, and you didn’t, I ask where they are. This is a safeguard.”
Cartwright tells me that the two women have been terminated. I ask about criminal prosecution, and he says there is none.
According to Cartwright all the tickets have been inputted into the system. Letters are going out to each of the 3,400 motorists advising them there was a problem and they now have 45 days to decide what action they want to take.
“They are not being penalized,” Cartwright says. “They have same opportunity to take care of their ticket that they would have had they been updated in a timely manner.”
Cartwright says the defendants can either plead guilty and pay the fine, plead guilty and go to driving school, or they can plead not guilty and demand their day in court.
As far as the future, Cartwright says the department is going paperless which should make embarrassing situations like this one almost impossible.
“We are piggy backing with the police department. It is called ARMS and any Citation you get, will be electronic. We won’t deal with paper. That traffic stop will electronically be sent to the data base. We won’t handle it in the future.”
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I have to ask what has happened to the supervisor(s) of the two fired workers? It seems to me they didn’t supervise very well. I hope that is reflected in their performance report and taken into consideration before any possible promotions.
I think this is the tip of the Iceberg. I recieved some tickets back in 2007. I paid them, I still have the receipts to prove it. earlier this year i got pulled over and given a ticket for driving under suspension. I told the officer i wasn’t suspended. He said it came back on his comp I was. When i went to the clerks office downtown they said I was good and gave me a letter claiming the fines were paid on time. Somewhere along the line it was never put into the system they were paid. So, I had to go to court, pay fines, get a new license. All because some lazy person didn’t put I had paid the intial tickets into the system. Is there no accountability with these offices? It is enraging. I understand mistakes happen, but this is way to common to be simple mistakes.
I’m not saying a word. However, I know some other people that would have done the job and got it done on time.
LOTS of Civil Service employees spend more time on their hair, nails, dates, reading, etc., than they do on actually doing their JOB.
Why do taxpayers continually pay an arm and a leg for governmental incompetency on a daily basis and do nothing about it? Metro expects people who do business with them to perform these contracts in a timely manner, usually with time limitations, and penalties for breaches of those restrictions. Accountability is a one way street with Metro Grovernment.
Metro’s take on this issue continues to enforce the issuance of “tickets” is solely a revenue generator and nothing more. If a violator had not paid their citations the Dept. of Safety would have suspended the violator’s driving privileges, but in this case, lazy employees and poor supervision punishes those who attempted to do the right thing. Any General Sessions Judge worth his salt should summarily dismiss the tickets without a second thought and without the extra expense of legal representation on the part of the traffic violator. The judges should haul into their courts Bill Cartwright and the supervisors of Traffic Violations Bureau for an explanation of why and how this happened. Cut the Traffic Bureau’s budget and freeze their salaries for at least five years for their incompetence; if they quit, they do so without a reference letters and if they retire let it be with reduced benefits as the taxpayers deserve nothing less.
The right question is not “Is firing them enough,” but rather, “Who owes the money?”
Government is a service, and no service company in Nashville would expect to get away with this “silly us, now cough it up” nonsense.
If they had a problem in their pipeline, the guilty parties are the only ones to hold responsible:
These employees were burning money on its way to the cash register—Metro doesn’t get to chase down customers and demand payment—the guilty employees ALONE are responsible for moneys that don’t arrive in their cash registers. Management included.
Does Metro have the courage to press charges?
I also received one of these letters last week. I mailed in two checks and called to see if they received them and they told me yes, but if the officer doesn’t turn in the ticket within 45 days then it is null and void and they will send the checks back! About a month later I received my checks stamped void! Now over 4 months later they want me to attempt to pay it again?? Not right! I feel outraged that they can say oops and give us our money or we will take your license. What if we don’t pay them? Does anyone have any legal advice? I guess the government can do as they please!
Renee, You can invoke your right to to a trial. That will cost you however if your found guilty of the offense. As aggravating as it is , if you know your committed the offense just pay the ticket. As I understand it the city is changing their procedures to computerize the tickets from the time they are issued. This will eliminate the problem that caused this. It will also eliminate numerous data entry jobs. You should email your city councilmen and all five at large city councilman and give them the benefit of your thinking.
http://www.nashville.gov/council/feedback.aspx
dont get pulled over and ya wont have to worry about it…
“inputted”?