Has Key Colony Beach really doubled the fines it collected this year? Is that even legal?

» Here it is in black and white: The Key Colony Beach Adopted Budget shows "Court and Code Violation Fines" revenue.

» A municipality with fines/penalties/costs "revenue" does need to show it as income in their financial report but we've long known that setting a "quota" is illegal. A municipality that balances its budget on those fines/penalties/costs might as well send their police force out to ticket every third car or every Ohio car that comes into town.

» Proprietary function means "any activity conducted primarily for producing a pecuniary profit for a governmental agency, excluding the activities normally supported by taxes or fees."

» Florida courts hold that a city would be immune from liability only if it were engaged in a governmental function as opposed to a proprietary function, at the time the tort was committed.

» The FY22-23 Key Colony Beach Adopted Budget shows a line item of $51,500 for "Court and Code Violation Fines," nearly twice the line item in the FY21-22 Budget Summary. Commissioner Tom Harding reported in April that violation fines were already well ahead of projections for the year.

» It appears that the intentional inclusion of fines as budget balancing revenue is what's called "malice at law." It goes hand-in-hand with the earlier question of whether the City is trying to "code enforce some residents into bankruptcy."

UPDATE:

» In August, 2023, the code officer gave his "annual report" to the commission since these facts were first published.

» "Doubled"? No. That was a serious understatement.

• Background: On 2/3/2020 Building Official Roussin and Inspector Lawton performed a code inspection tour and found 0 (zero, none, nada) properties out of compliance
• In 2023, the code officer reported, "In one year, approximately 825 code cases were opened" [plus "uncounted" other citations].
• In 2023, the code officer reported, "Fines of $263,495.40 were imposed"
• In 2023, the code officer reported, "Fines of $89,126.10 have been paid so far, more will be paid for license renewal."

» City records now show over $133,000 in fines were recorded and nearly $500,000 in total fines were imposed in 2023.

» Code enforcement is apparently a "fine"ly-tuned machine.