Issued To: County, City, Town and Village Chief Fiscal Officers

Accounting Requirements

Summary

Chapter 497 of the Laws of 1999 amends the Vehicle and Traffic Law effective onApril 1, 2000 to provide that every county and the City of New York shall establish a handicapped parking education program for the purpose of providing education, advocacy and increased public awareness of handicapped parking laws. In order to fund this program the statute provides for imposition of a $30 mandatory surcharge for violations relating to handicapped parking spaces. This surcharge is in addition to any other sentence, fine or penalty.

One-half of the amount will be paid to chief fiscal officer of the county in which the violation occurred. These monies must be used to fund the handicapped parking education program. The other one-half of the surcharge will be paid to the chief fiscal officer of the municipality which brought the charge for violation. The municipality's share will be used for local justice programs and purposes. At least ten percent of the municipality's share must be used for developing and implementing a disability awareness program for local law enforcement agencies. The purpose of the disability awareness program is to train local law enforcement personnel to recognize and appropriately respond to persons with disabilities.

Accounting Information

Surcharge receipts should be recorded as revenue in account code A2610 Fines and Forfeited Bail, and expenditures of these funds will be recorded in expenditure account code A2989 Other Education. Subsidiary records for both revenues and expenditures must be maintained in order to determine the excess, if any, of revenues over expenditures. Any excess of revenues over expenditures at years end should be recorded in account code A889 Miscellaneous Reserve.