photo by: Nick Krug

A parking ticket rests under a wiper blade on Massachusetts Street on Monday, March 7, 2011.

Drivers who don’t put change into the downtown Lawrence parking meters will pay more in fines, pending City Commission approval Tuesday.

Fines for downtown parking violations will increase from $3 to $5 under an ordinance going before commissioners. The last time fees increased was in 2009, when they went from $2 to $3 per ticket.

The extra dollars per violation could add up to hundreds of thousands more in revenue for the city, according to city-provided data on overtime parking meter fines. It may also lead more drivers to pay the meters.

“An increase in the initial meter fee may result in increased adherence to the meter program, which is the desired outcome we wish to achieve,” Municipal Court Manager Vicki Stanwix wrote in a city memo.

Besides the original fine, late fees will also increase. Currently, violators are charged $15 if they don’t pay the $3 fine after 10 days. The ordinance increases the penalty to $20.

Habitual violators — those who have five or more parking violations within a 30-day period — are currently charged $50. That would jump to $75 under the changes.

The city predicts it could generate $261,280 more per year with the increases, though if more people adhere to the parking rules, that amount could be less, the memo warns.

In 2015, parking control officers handed out 102,141 parking meter tickets. Of those, 71,183 were paid within 10 days, generating $213,549 for the city. Tickets with late fees added onto them brought in another $373,027 last year, and citations for habitual violators generated an additional $46,057.

The money goes into the city’s parking fund, which was used in 2015 to pay parking meter attendants, municipal court clerks, three police officers, a public works employee to do maintenance on the parking meters and garages, as well as Parks and Recreation employees for downtown beautification projects.

Assuming the average number of violators for the past few years would remain consistent with the increased fees, Lawrence would get $136,280 more from tickets paid within 10 days. The amount paid for late tickets would increase by $103,000, and habitual violations would bring in $22,000 more than average.

City staff reviewed parking fines in other cities when making the proposal, concluding, “Lawrence is currently low in the fine costs.”

According to a memo from Lawrence Police Capt. Adam Heffley, Topeka and Boulder, Colo., charge $15 for parking meter violations. The Manhattan City Commission recently approved an increase in parking fines from $5 to $15.

In February, the Lawrence City Commission nixed an idea from Commissioner Matthew Herbert to offer violators the option to pay for fines with canned goods that would be donated to a local food bank. At the time, city staff warned the program would lead to revenue loss.

Staff projected the city would receive $30,000 less annually in parking fines under the program. To cover the loss, staff had suggested increasing fines from $3 to $5.

The City Commission voted to not consider the program, with or without a fine increase.

Commissioners will convene at 5:45 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall, 6 E. Sixth St.