Good drivers

Madison would prefer it's drivers not be so responsible, leave their cars parked in metered locations for too long, and pay up!

For the second year in a row, the Madison Police Department's inability to hit revenue projections for parking ticket enforcement has punched a hole in the city budget.

By the end of this year, city officials predict, the department will come up $500,000 short of the $5.5 million that was budgeted for revenue from parking violations in 2008.

The half-million dollars in expected parking ticket losses is a "significant" red flag in the budget, said Dan Bohrod, an analyst in the city comptroller's office. He grouped it with other sizeable shortfalls such as a $1.4 million expected decline in building permit revenues and a $750,000 loss in investment income.

The missing revenue accounts for up to 17 percent of the total $2.98 million projected shortfall in this year's budget, he noted.

So the city budgets based on the expected carelessness of it's citizens. Good plan. Sorry people are wising up.