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- Utah cities comply with a law limiting traffic fine revenue to 25%.
- The Utah State Auditor found small towns have higher traffic fine revenue percentages.
SALT LAKE CITY — Sometimes cities seem eager to dish out traffic tickets to pad the budget.
However, the Utah Legislature passed a law stating that revenue from traffic fines may not exceed 25% of a local government's total general fund revenue for a fiscal year. The Utah State Auditor was recently tasked with tracking how much each of Utah's cities gains from citations.
"The Legislature added this test because they were concerned about towns using traffic fees as a tool to generate revenue for their general fund," said Seth Oveson, local government manager for the Utah State Auditor's Office.
If a city earns more than 25% of its revenue from traffic tickets, the overages are given to the Utah Department of Transportation.
How Utah cities rate
The state auditor's office found that all Utah cities were in compliance for 2023 and 2024. Of those with the highest percentage of revenue from traffic fines, many are small towns. But it might not be because they're dishing out more tickets — small towns have smaller overall budgets.
"If you're dealing with a very small town and their general government revenues are smaller, those traffic fees are going to make up a bigger percentage of their budget," said Oveson.
The Top 10 list does not indicate the number of citations given, only the percentage of revenue received. And, unfortunately, they've only been keeping track since the legislation passed in 2023.
While a few of the towns are anecdotally known to be heavy-handed on traffic tickets, the numbers don't necessarily mean that the towns are speed traps. But, it could be good information for drivers to have at the back of their minds.
"If I was a citizen looking at it, I'd probably look at it and say, 'Yep, they get a higher percent of their general fund revenue from tickets, maybe I should drive more carefully through there,'" Oveson said.
