On Monday, the Chehalis City Council made considerable changes to the amount of money the city will require people to pay as penalties for certain non-traffic infractions.
The state Legislature made changes to state law in 2019 requiring courts to collect additional monetary penalties for many non-traffic infractions.
As a result of the change, multiple penalties had to be raised by 105% of their base monetary requirement. Also, some infractions were required to have penalties increased by $40 in assessments added for trauma care, auto theft, traumatic brain injury and legislative fees because of RCW 46.63.110, according to the meeting’s agenda packet.
The Chehalis budget committee met to discuss the matter and took the opportunity to make some major changes to the city’s penalty structure.
The city started by taking away increased penalties for repeated infractions.
“Under the old system, for certain types of offenses, we had a first, second and third offense system — sort of a graduating increase in cost — so that if the person was repeatedly doing the same type of incident, we could increase the amount for that citation,” Police Chief Randy Kaut told the council.
“But it was kind of an unwieldy system because the officers in the field don’t know whether it's a first, second or third offense,” Kaut added. “And so our recommendation is that we remove the first, second and third offense, have a single offense and have a single monetary penalty for it.”
With the understanding it had to make the 105% increase happen — an increase that is actually a fee collected by the state and not extra revenue for Chehalis — the city knew that people would be affected most by having to pay extra if the city’s base penalties remained the same.
To rectify this, the city decreased the base penalty of multiple offenses so that extra money would not have to come out of citizens’ pockets to accommodate a fee imposed by the state.
The removal of the graduated-penalty model and the decrease in base penalties to accommodate the 105% increase means Chehalis will make less money off of violators in most instances.
An example is the penalty structure for possessing an unlicensed animal.
Before Monday’s change, the base penalty for having an unlicensed animal was $250. If Chehalis kept the base penalty the same, the required 105% increase would have made the public pay $513 total. Yet, Chehalis lowered the base penalty to $120, more than halving the money it takes in. With the required 105% increase, the public will now pay $246 for the infraction in totality — a net savings of $4 even with the state’s added fee. The prior second and third offense penalties for the same infraction of $500 and $750 respectively have been removed altogether.
After 29 instances of increased second and third offense penalties were removed and 16 of the remaining 25 base penalties were reduced, the public will pay less than they originally had to, even after the 105% increase.
In some cases, the city opted to keep the base penalty the same, but still removed the increased penalties for repeated infractions.
Take coercive solicitation, for example. The base penalty of $250 has remained the same, so after the 105% increase, the public will now pay $513 for the infraction, but the city removed the second-offense penalty of $500 altogether, which would have amounted to a penalty of $1,025 after the required 105% increase.
As part of the measure, the city council also voted to remove penalty amounts from the wording of the ordinances that pertain to them, referring the reader to a separate bail schedule instead. This is so that the fee structure can be more easily modified in the future, according to agenda documents.
The measure also acquired council approval for a change in penalties for the “Parking Adjacent to Schools” and “Tamper with Parking Enforcement” ordinances. The base fees for these two items were $5 and $47 respectively. They are now both set at $30.
Finally, the base penalties for failure to obtain a business license and failure to pay gambliing taxes both increased from $100 to $250, making the public’s burden $513 after the 105% increase.
To view the full slate of changes, visit the city’s website at https://www.ci.chehalis.wa.us/, select “Agendas” and click on the April 25 agenda document.
