CITY STAFF SHOULD PAY THEIR OWN TICKETS

Nobody likes getting a traffic ticket. But judging by reader comments, it may be just as vexing when other people — namely, lead-footed City of Edmonton employees — get dinged with photo radar tickets and don't pay up. Oh, it's not that the traffic tickets don't get paid; the city pays them. And of course, that really means city taxpayers pony up for tickets they didn't incur.

Few stories have riled readers as much as the reporting last week by Postmedia reporter Matthew Black that buses, garbage trucks, snow plows and even photo radar vehicles were among hundreds of City of Edmonton fleet vehicles hit with photo enforcement tickets during the last two years, but Edmonton taxpayers have been picking up the tab since July.

His followup article this week elaborating on the reasons why taxpayers are on the hook for an estimated $21,816 — and counting — in photo enforcement and red light camera tickets received by drivers of city fleet vehicles over the past 11 months has elicited similar outrage.

Making matters worse, more than half of that money leaves cash-strapped city coffers and flows to the province as traffic fine revenue.

The numbers involved may be relatively tiny compared to the overall city budget, but it's the principle involved that's so irksome.

Some of the ire has been misdirected at city administration and councillors. As Black reports, it's not a management decision or coun

The panel's interpretation exempts city employees from the real world in which the rest of us operate.

cil directive responsible for the city-pays policy. The blame lies with a labour arbitration panel that overturned a previous driver-pays policy after the city's transit union filed a grievance.

The June 2021 panel decision “effectively negated” the city's ability since July of last year to make drivers pay the tickets themselves.

That decision was reinforced by another arbitration ruling in February, which only applies to photo enforcement tickets.

It all stems from a grievance filed by the union representing ETS drivers challenging the city's prior policy that drivers themselves had to pay photo radar and red light camera fines. Union officials argued making drivers pay their tickets amounted to double discipline, noting that on top of the ticket fine, municipal employees also face city-imposed sanctions that ranged from a written reprimand to multi-day suspensions. In a split decision, the three-person arbitration panel sided with the union, ruling that making drivers pay violated a “just cause” provision in the collective agreement, and ordered the city to stop collecting fines from drivers.

In our view, the panel's interpretation exempts city employees from the real world in which the rest of us operate. It lets city employees off the hook for breaking the law and conflates two different sanctions into one.

Far from facing double jeopardy for the act of speeding or running a red light, city employees get a ticket for the offence — just like any other motorist. Then, as an employee — like many other workers in other organizations — they may be subject to sanctions from their employer for breach of conduct or poor performance. As city workers, they are presumably obligated to perform their jobs safely and within the laws of the land.

The city has appealed the labour arbitration panel rulings. Let's hope that fairness and common sense prevail next time around.