City Council - Regular Meeting

Cases not showing up at the county until people were in court with their citations in hand. Now we're looking at some problems that seem to be emerging at the San Antonio Police Department due to their split system of using paper and electronic citations. You get a ticket. You plan to pay for it or fight it, but when you show up, it is not in the system. Two weeks ago we showed you how that was going on at the county. To be exact, a Bear County's Justice of the Peace Precinct 1 Court. The problem is that the the uh um software is not communicating with each other. And when the glitch cleared, staff knew something was off. It was a big line. We had a people waiting outside, um probably past the curve through the parking lot. The county says the issue lasted about a month and has since been fixed, but no one has said exactly what caused it. Now similar concerns at the city came up during the Public Safety Committee meeting after complaints from residents to the Deputy City Manager. It was some um calls that I received from residents being frustrated um going to the court and not finding their tickets. So, I started working with the police department to find out how many paper tickets we were issuing and a way to be able to um use more electronic devices. So, the issue, they say, is how tickets are handled.

From the residents' perspective, they're still receiving a paper ticket, and from Municipal Court's perspective, they're still receiving a paper ticket. A split system creates a gap between when a ticket is written and when it reaches the court. It also mitigates the chance for lost tickets.

Meaning tickets can fall through the cracks. Paper tickets could be converted to electronic. Uh this would create improvements in an estimated 736 hours. Hundreds of hours spent entering data that could be automated, but the problems may go beyond delays. Since last year, sources have shown us broken ticket writers and printers paid by you sitting unused at substations. The city has spent hundreds of thousands on that equipment. As Fox SA reported in 2024, the city approved more than $380,000 for ticket writers, printers, and e-citation technology for SAPD's traffic unit. But when we looked at the city's 2025 adopted budget, there is no single line item for Tyler Technologies, the company that has the contract with both the city and the county. Instead, those costs are spread across different departments and bundled up into a larger public safety and technology spending. We have filed an open records request to get a total breakdown. For the next budget cycle, the city's now proposing spending $220,000 for 60 new devices to keep them going until the entire department goes electronic. We know that we're losing money as it is with these paper tickets. We we know that we have increased staff time, court time, etc. Uh we we with the paper tickets. So, moving to a a paperless system, um if our folks, our SAPD and ACS and everybody's comfortable with it, um I think makes makes a lot of sense.

Sources also raised concerns about how paper tickets are handled. As you can see here, booklets with personal information were left out at a substation. They're supposed to be tracked and returned when they're done filling out the booklet. For residents, that means your information could be exposed. City leaders say going digital is the most effective way to go. In terms of efficiency, it makes sense in terms of the amount of time it's going to save on traffic stops and then the ticket data entry. We thought it might have been done faster, but I understand that it would take a a full almost year and a half from today to be able to implement that.

Meaning the longer this system stays split, the more delays. Residents receiving e-citations resolve their cases in almost half the time. Also, the more risk and the more money lost. So, paper, we're seeing the data from FY25 showed us a 38% pay payment rate, whereas electronic was a 63% payment rate. We reached out to the Deputy City Manager, Maria Villagomez, and to SAPD for a statement. Late this afternoon, SAPD told us that they have no problems with their electronic citations. Jamie Virhing, Fox SA.