Federal Hill residents demand action as city leaves millions in traffic fines uncollected

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]Well, experts believe the amount of uncollected revenue at City Hall is likely far greater than what even auditors have discovered. And now some residents in South Baltimore believe the city is less than interested in learning about it. Three meetings were scheduled and three meetings were cancelled. In Federal Hill, residents say they've tried but failed to get anyone at City Hall to listen about millions of dollars in traffic fines which have gone uncollected. There were a large number of accounts over 100,000 that had unpaid parking fines in Baltimore City.

[00:00:41]When speeding drivers and illegal parkers began endangering the community, community leaders began tracking the outcomes of thousands of traffic citations throughout the city.

[00:00:51]Through public documents on the city's Open Baltimore website, they discovered that there are currently $142 million in uncollected tickets issued for parking and moving violations. And when the unpaid penalties were added to those fines, residents found $288 million in revenue which the city has failed to collect. So it's hundreds of millions of dollars citywide that's being lost. If regular citizens can find this information, then city officials should have it at their fingertips. But at the city's Board of Estimates meeting on Wednesday, there was no mention of the millions in uncollected traffic fines.

[00:01:25]An audit of the city's finance department did uncover more than $4 million in payments on leases and loans which the city has failed to collect.

[00:01:34]There is no way in hell that we should have this amount of money just standing out there. They need to blame themselves. This is a lot of money and passing the buck doesn't make it better, doesn't fix it. Taxpayer advocate David Williams predicts there's millions more in uncollected revenue and says city leaders are to blame for the lack of oversight. City leaders are always complaining that there's not enough money and that they need to raise taxes or fees, yet there are millions of dollars in uncollected revenue that's out there and city officials need to take this seriously. If our data is right, this city is even more broken. If these council people are worried about $4 million, it's it's laughable when you have hundreds of million dollars potentially regarding parking fines. In Federal Hill, residents are confident that the amount of uncollected funds is far greater than what auditors reported but question whether City Hall is ready to listen.

[00:02:31]They're going to continue to do what they want without care about the residents of Baltimore. Our emails to City Hall asking for an explanation have gone unanswered. Jeff Abel, Fox 45 News.

[00:02:46]I'm Kai Jackson. Thank you for watching.

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