photo by: Dylan Lysen/Journal-World

The Lawrence Municipal Court, 1 Riverfront Plaza.

Municipal citations and subsequent court proceedings in Lawrence fell sharply in 2020, mostly because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The court held significantly fewer hearings for cases of traffic, parking and other municipal violations than in the year before, partially because in-person hearings were canceled for three months after the pandemic emerged, according to the court’s 2020 annual report. The Municipal Court is the venue where violations of Lawrence city ordinances are processed and is separate from the Douglas County District Court, where criminal and civil cases related to state law are conducted.

The Municipal Court was already seeing a decrease in cases, but the pandemic appears to have supercharged a decline. The 2020 report shows the total number of municipal citations in Lawrence fell to 7,250, from a total of 18,473 in 2019, a 61% decrease.

The most commonly issued citations were for speeding, parking with an expired tag and no proof of insurance. Other citations included seat-belt violations, theft and criminal trespassing.

Along with other citations dropping, parking violations dropped the most. The number of citations fell to 1,908 in 2020 from 7,783 in 2019, which is a 75% decrease. However, those cases do not include citations for metered downtown parking violations, which the court categorizes separately.

According to the report, 27,145 metered parking citations were issued in 2020. That is still a significant drop in metered parking citations — a 59% decrease — compared with the 65,461 metered parking citations in 2019. That drop is likely also caused by the city suspending metered parking enforcement for part of the year in response to the pandemic.

With the decrease in citations, the Municipal Court also saw a significant drop in revenue. With fewer cases and hearings, the court brought in a total of $1.43 million in revenue, which is a 49% drop from the $2.8 million it took in in 2019.

However, the decline in revenue won’t have much of an effect on the court, said Porter Arneill, a spokesman for the city.

“This did not have a negative effect on court operations,” Arneill said in an email. “Court fees are not required to solely cover the cost of the court. When revenues don’t cover annual operations, the general fund taxes cover the difference.”

Prior to the pandemic, the court had been seeing a steady decrease in citations and revenue for several years. In each of the reports published since 2016, the court saw a decrease in total number of citations and overall revenue.