At least if you think the words of retired traffic officer Larry Randolph have the ring of truth to them. In a story told to the Los Angeles Parking Freedom Initiative, which has been critical of L.A.’s ticketing system, he said quotas mostly come into play when employees are working overtime.
Confirming his allegations to L.A. Weekly, he broke it down like this:
During regular shifts officers with the Parking Enforcement branch of the L.A. Department of Transportation usually are expected to issue 20 tickets in an eight-hour shift, although the word “quota” is not used, he said.
However, he says, at certain times of the year, when LADOT is allegedly looking to eat up its allocated budget because of a use-it-or-lose-it system, costly overtime is instituted, and officers are expected to write a certain number of tickets to help justify that overtime.
“When they’re paying you time-and-a-half, they want to see a minimum of eight tickets,” Randolph told us.