Yesterday city councilman Charlie Winburn proposed an idea of an amnesty program, which lets people pay their late parking tickets, taxes, and other payments to the city without penalty. This program will give people two months to come clean with their fines, fees, and taxes. He believes that collecting this revenue could be enough to spare the layoffs of hundreds of firefighters and policeman. According to wlwt, there have been $4.5 million dollars of unpaid parking tickets between 2007 and 2009.
Winburn’s idea is inspired by cities, such as Newark and Fort Lauderdale, that have done the same and produced similar results. The city of Birmingham Alabama retrieved up to one million in back taxes and parking ticket fines. Read more about it here, and see if Cincinnati could see similar results.
