State audit faults Brice ticket records
Brice, the Franklin County village known for issuing traffic tickets, failed to keep adequate records supporting the fines collected, a state audit has found.
Police Chief Bud Bauchmoyer didn’t maintain records needed for auditors to verify the accuracy of the village’s reported 2016 speeding-ticket revenue, it said. Village officials told auditors in response that they will work with their thirdparty collection agencies to ensure sufficient controls.
Critics have compared Brice to the defunct village of New Rome for its trafficticketing practices and what some see as an overzealous police force. Bauchmoyer said he and his officers are just trying to keep the village safe. The village has just 120 residents, but 10,000 motorists drive through it each day.
The village faces a classaction lawsuit accusing it of illegally collecting money from traffic tickets from 2013 to 2015. The lawsuit, pending in Franklin County Common Pleas Court, says the village acted illegally in ticketing drivers by issuing civil citations directly payable to the village, rather than criminal citations processed through Franklin County Municipal Court, attorney David Goldstein said.
Last year, the village began using a speed camera placed in an orange construction barrel to record traffic violations. The camera is legal because a sign provides notice to motorists that it’s in use, but “it’s a huge money grab,” Goldstein said. “If the village of Brice could not do this, they couldn’t survive (financially).”
Bauchmoyer said he moved the camera from the orange barrel after people vandalized it — including driving into it — and he now uses officers with handheld cameras in their patrol cars to record drivers who violate the village’s 25-mph speed limit.
The village reported $171,611 in collections from speedcamera citations last year, which amounted to 73 percent of the village’s general-fund revenue. Bauchmoyer is in charge of reviewing speedcamera photos for quality before approving and submitting images to the village’s collection agencies. However, he never kept a record of which images he approved for
collection, making it impossible for auditors to validate the reported revenue amount, the audit found.
“A prudent police chief would keep a complete record of every citation, especially given the level of scrutiny placed on the village’s ticketing practices,” Ohio Auditor Dave Yost said in a news release.
Bauchmoyer said he approves only the images’ content, verifying that the license plate shown on the image conforms with state motor-vehicle records. The village’s private collection agencies approve the collection work, including the amounts due to the village, he said.
The state audit also issued a finding for recovery for $1,000 against former Police Chief Christopher Stets, who was responsible at the time for the safekeeping of a loaned gun that was sold. The pistol was one of two guns on loan to the village department from the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency.
When the agency contacted the village in 2014 to confirm that it still had the two guns, only one was found. Federal officials used the missing pistol’s serial number to trace it to a man who had bought it in 2011 from an Ashland gunshop. The gun was confiscated, prompting the man to request a $1,000 reimbursement from the village, the audit said. The village reimbursed the man in 2015. Stets has been ordered to repay the amount because he was responsible for the gun, the audit said.