Steeper fines, more code enforcers: How LI's town and village justice courts raised $47 million in 2024, up 13%

In Ocean Beach, fines for carrying open containers of alcohol in public have soared. So have penalties for other offenses in the Fire Island community.

In Hempstead Village, a third-party vendor tries to recoup delinquent parking ticket revenue.

And in Mineola, a parking supervisor uses real-time technology to "keep the flow going” in a downtown flush with restaurants and a high-trafficked train station and hospital.

Long Island's 94 municipal justice courts generated $46.9 million in 2024, up 12.7% from the nearly $41.6 million raised in 2023, according to data from the state comptroller's office. 

The jump is more than double the increase between 2022 and 2023, when revenue totals rose by $2.4 million, or 6.1%, a Newsday analysis found.

The courts in Nassau and Suffolk accounted for 23.3% of the statewide collection, a figure that has risen from 2019, when the share was 16.4%, the data shows.

Across Long Island, villages and towns are struggling to approve budgets that stay within the state's tax cap. Under intense pressure to keep taxes flat, more officials are turning to justice court revenue to fill funding gaps. The revenue growth is fueled by the hiring of more officers who can write tickets, and increased fines for myriad violations. 

From Mineola to Sag Harbor, violations with greater fines and scrutiny range from landlords running illegal rentals to disorderly conduct in public. 

Coupled with new technology that results in faster ticketing, Long Island's towns and villages are flush with an influx of new revenue. Village and town officials say the heightened enforcement, and penalties, are intended to deter chronic offenses. But critics of the increased fines point to a system in which policy is guided by revenue goals rather than safety. The effect is a regressive tax that, combined with strict collection policies, disproportionately harms lower-income residents and minorities for committing minor infractions, public policy analysts say.

If municipalities "are using fines and fees as a way of balancing the budget, every time there's a shortfall you write more tickets," said Joanna Weiss, co-founder and co-executive director of the Fines and Fees Justice Center, a nonpartisan national advocacy organization with a state office in New York.

"That's just really terrible public policy," Weiss said. "This is, unfortunately, a super regressive way of taxing people because it is not taxing equitably or according to people’s ability to pay. It is taxing people along how they are policed.”

The court money flows from fines collected as a result of violations of state and local laws, according to the data. The money is typically split among the state, county and village or town.

Fine hikes, new tech

The tiny Fire Island village of Ocean Beach is a summer vacation hub that draws tens of thousands of visitors. 

At its justice court, revenue jumped more than 69% between 2023 and 2024, from $87,800 to $148,600.

The revenue surge followed hikes to fines for several violations in October 2023, which included public urination, open containers and illegal docking.

The fine for having an open container in public jumped from $125 to $300. Public urination fines doubled from $250 to $500. Village Administrator Joseph DiFrancisco said the village zeroed in on those offenses because they were among the most common the village prosecutes. 

The increased fines were designed as “more of a deterrent,” DiFrancisco said. “It would be great if we had no fines and nobody was breaking the law.”

Elsewhere, municipalities are hiring more employees and purchasing tech that makes it easier to catch violators.

Southampton Village's justice court revenue more than doubled, from $512,000 to $1.2 million. Mayor Bill Manger said it was driven by a rise in parking and other vehicle and traffic law violations.

The village began using handheld electronic devices in 2024 to issue parking tickets, away from the past practice of chalking tires and handwriting tickets. Even the slightest mistake would result in a judge tossing the case, Manger said.

The new electronic system is “much more accurate and doesn't really allow for too many errors or mistakes on the part of the person entering the information,” he said.

In Mineola, village parking supervisor Danny Ramalhete walked amid the maze of cars parked  in downtown Mineola on a recent morning. He opened an app on his phone that tracks vehicles' payments in real time. The app displayed a color-coded grid to show occupied spots, with green signaling those that had been paid for, and red for those that had not. The virtual display, he said, gives the village and its code enforcement officers a real-time glimpse into active violations — an edge that wasn't there before. 

"I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but if they push it, you have to write them a ticket," Ramalhete said in an interview. Village officials stressed their overall aim is compliance.

Mineola’s court revenue jumped nearly 53.3% from 2023 to 2024, among the highest on Long Island. The haul grew from $1.59 million in 2023 to $2.44 million in 2024. Elizabeth Bernardes, clerk of the court, attributed the increase, in part, to the stepped-up code enforcement.

I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but if they push it, you have to write them a ticket.

— Danny Ramalhete, Mineola parking supervisor

Visitors to the NYU Langone Hospital-Long Island, lost in a rush of emotions, will often park in front of homes or businesses, she said.

“We really enforce to try to keep the flow going,” Bernardes said. 

Parking and speeding play a huge role

The bulk of justice court revenue comes from parking tickets and moving violations, like running stop signs and speeding, officials said. 

A common spot to issue traffic tickets in the Village of Southampton is the western entry on Montauk Highway, Southampton Village Police Officer John Sganga said. Some eastbound commuters drive there to avoid the heavy traffic on County Road 39. He said he tries to write the same number of citations in the winter and fall as in the summer months, when the seasonal population swells and more cars are on the road.

"A lot of people don't pay attention to the [speed limit] signs when you enter the village, or when you're driving around it in general," Sganga said. Speeds on major roads in the village are capped at 30 mph, while other roads are lower.

In Sag Harbor, justice court revenue jumped 42% in 2024 after the village more than doubled its traffic and parking enforcement staff from five to 11 officers.

In past years, Mayor Thomas Gardella said, the justice court ran a small deficit. 

“The last two years, it's paid for the running of the court and brought in some revenue for the village," he said. 

Most tickets are issued to vehicles in the paid parking lots at Long Wharf and Meadow Street, and to cars on Main Street, which has a two-hour parking limit, Gardella said.

"If you have a business on Main Street, and Main Street gets taken up with people that are parking for over two hours, there's no turnover," Gardella said. 

Housing, disorderly conduct

Not all revenue is generated from motor vehicle infractions. 

Farmingdale, also a nightlife hub, attracts 5,000 people on the weekends, Village Mayor Ralph Ekstrand said.

Nassau County police officers often find bar patrons relieving themselves outside, Ekstrand said.

The fines for public urination start at $250 and then jump to $500 and $1,000 for repeat offenders.

"Last year, the court told me we had four people that were three-time losers," Ekstrand said. "That means they paid us, in one year, $4,000."

Housing violations are also a common revenue source.

Lynbrook Village Clerk John Giordano said the village recently increased enforcement and fines for illegal apartments.

Last February, the village raised the maximum fine a judge can impose for a first offense for operating an illegal apartment from $4,500 to a range between $6,000 and $12,000. Second offenses, which were previously capped at $7,000, can now be given in the range of $12,000 to $20,000. The total fines imposed for illegally operating an apartment in 2024 was $195,500 encompassing 47 violations.

Some property owners have continued to maintain and collect rent for illegal apartments while the cases play out in court. The stiffer penalties are intended to serve as a more forceful deterrent to landlords.

In Mineola, in addition to the increased emphasis on parking enforcement, the village brought in $586,292 in 2024 from a landlord for multiple illegal housing violations spanning nearly 20 years, Mayor Paul Pereira said.  

Biggest revenue generators

Southampton Assistant Town Attorney Sean Cambridge leads the municipality's prosecution of code violations in justice court, which in 2024 generated $2.29 million in revenue — the most of any in Suffolk County.

Cambridge said the town is focused more on compliance than generating revenue, but he added, "we're an office that's very willing to litigate when we need to."

The majority of the town's cases stem from traffic and criminal court judgments, according to court documents.

The town has "very active" officers in its enforcement divisions working nights and weekends — times "that typically municipalities are not doing" — to respond to resident complaints, he said.

In a climate where governments are under pressure to maintain services and keep taxes flat, ticketing is an appealing target.

“This does tend to be a promising source of revenue, especially when times are hard,” said Aravind Boddupalli, senior research associate in the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

The Village of Hempstead collected the most revenue of the municipalities on Long Island, with $5.5 million in 2024. The village's haul was up 47.2% over 2023, when the total was $3.7 million, records show.

In Hempstead Village, Mayor Waylyn Hobbs Jr. said court revenues have increased in recent years due to the hiring of more employees to help with enforcement, and an outside company to manage and collect parking tickets. The company goes "after people who are delinquent in paying their fines," Hobbs said.

'Part of the penalty is giving back'

The Town of Riverhead's justice court calendar is broken up by violation. Vehicle and traffic law infractions are heard alongside misdemeanor crimes on Mondays. Town code and parking violations on Tuesdays. Wednesday afternoons are for small claims and landlord-tenant disputes. The town collected $1.2 million in revenue from its justice court system in 2024.

Erik Howard, the Riverhead Town attorney, said there's been a more targeted effort to issue code violations. When he began his role as a town attorney in 2017, the justice court calendar heard about 15 to 20 town code cases a week. Now, there could be as many as 60, he said.

That increase, according to Howard, allowed the town to address and prosecute quality-of-life complaints more quickly.

The code enforcement office also has grown from two to six officers, and Riverhead doubled its number of fire marshals, who may also issue code violations, from two to four.

In 2023, Riverhead implemented mandatory surcharges of between $65 and $250 to certain violations to finance town goals. The funding covers programming for substance abuse, beautification of town properties and water quality improvements.

Part of the penalty is giving back so that the town board can focus on improving something quality-of-life-wise for the residents.

— Erik Howard, Riverhead Town attorney

The code was established as a means of restorative justice and aims to reduce recidivism, Howard said.

“Part of the penalty is giving back so that the town board can focus on improving something quality-of-life-wise for the residents,” he said.

'Cash register justice'

In 2017, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights authored a report that identified the disproportionate impact of court fines on communities of color and other vulnerable populations.

When police heighten enforcement of low-level offenses, it can result "in individuals accumulating court debt," the report found. Authors of the report labeled the various court fees  imposed when an individual is unable to pay the fine as "poverty penalties" and a form of "cash register justice." Municipalities that rely heavily on court revenue to finance their operations tend to have a higher-than-average percentage of Black and Latino populations, the report said.

"You end up with a system of taxation that is really, really disadvantaging low-income communities and communities of color," Weiss, of the Fines and Fees Justice Center, said.

Plea deal debate

Jerry Rabinowitz, 83, of Kensington, said he doesn't drive into the Village of Great Neck Estates anymore.

He refuses to enter the neighboring village after he received a string of what he called "bogus tickets" for moving violations.

"It's all a money grab," Rabinowitz said.

He said the village changed all three of his moving violations to parking tickets. He hired an attorney, who he said negotiated a reduction in his fees from $600 to $300. All three tickets were for failing to signal, he said.

"They get a lot of young kids, get a lot of older people," Rabinowitz said. "They don’t want to get a moving violation on their license, because then their insurance goes up."

Some villages send a greater share of the revenue that's collected to the state than others. Great Neck Plaza, for instance, retained 96% of the $627,512 that flowed through its justice court in 2024 — among the highest shares in the region — with just $20,987 going to the state and $2,592.50 going to Nassau County.

The Village of Mill Neck, in the Town of Oyster Bay, kept the lowest share of revenue in 2024. It retained $11,727 of the $28,777 it brought in, or 40.8%. Brookville Village brought in $98,855, keeping $55,827, or 56.5%.

Benjamin Goldman, a Valley Stream-based attorney who defends speeding tickets, said plea deals help municipalities to keep the revenue in-house. “It’s been that way for years and years," Goldman said.

If certain violations that carry state surcharges are pleaded down to lesser violations of the village or town code, the state may not be entitled to the revenue. Or it may be due a smaller cut.

A 2010 report on justice court operations across New York, published by the state comptroller's office, calculated the impact of those plea deals. The report found that pleading down to a parking or traffic signal violation potentially had cost the state between $30 million to $40 million in "lost fine and surcharge revenue," while generating $23 million more for the towns and villages. 

Adam Koblenz, the mayor of Roslyn Estates who has previously worked as a prosecutor for other villages, said plea bargains are “at the discretion of each village prosecutor.”

“If there is a plea from a vehicle and traffic law to a local village code provision, in particular, for example, a parking statute under village code, then the village itself would retain the entirety of the fee,” Koblenz said.

Municipal officials defend the plea bargaining as crucial to preventing backlogs in their thinly-staffed courts.

Ernest Jones, Great Neck Plaza’s village prosecutor, said he aims to offer plea deals for virtually all moving violations, other than for school bus violations. It’s a way to keep the court from getting overpacked, he said.

“Most people don’t want to go to trial,” Jones said. “So we want to be prepared to offer them a deal. If we went to trial on every ticket issue, we’d be years behind.”