Loss of Photo Red Light $ to Hit Taxpayers

By Nicholas F. Benton

Just as the City of Falls Church is about to yield a significant net revenue benefit from its four photo red light locations, the state legislature has killed the program, the F.C. City Council learned at a budget work session Monday night.

The controversial program to run video tape at traffic intersections to nab motorists running red lights failed to be renewed by the legislature in Richmond last month, with only a small chance now that action by Governor Mark Warner would reinstate it.

But in addition to improving traffic safety, the program was on the verge of being a cash cow for the City, projected to yield in 2005 a net $300,000 a year to the City's operating budget, or the equivalent of about 1.5 cents on the real estate tax rate.

This was according to John Touhy, the City's chief financial officer, in a briefing at the budget work session Monday. Revenues were expected to top $600,000 in the current year, and the cost of running it only about $300,000.

With a repositioning of the lights, revenue from the system has grown from $212,750 in 2002 to $511,950 in 2003 and $556,450 in 2004. Capital costs of installing the system offset that revenue almost 100% until this year, when the projected cost of running the system dropped from over $400,000 each of the first three years, including $440,777 last year, to $300,000 this year, according to Touhy.

City officials joined with those of surrounding jurisdictions this week send a jointly-signed letter to Gov. Warner urging him to reinstate the plan by a couple of options available to him before the legislature's final veto session in early April. While the legislature voted to kill the program all over the state last month, similar programs are being expanded in the District of Columbia and Maryland.