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Students question parking procedures

Graphic by Caleb Carmean. Over the past 4 years, students have paid over $150 thousand dollars in decal fees and parking violation fines. All fines and fees seen in this graphic go to the Shorter College general operating fund.

Published April 16, 2008, 3 p.m.
By Caleb Carmean, The Periscope staff writer
Caleb.carmean@students.shorter.edu

Everday students return to their cars and find a yellow slip of paper detailing the fine they must now pay for illegal parking.

Yet these students, such as freshman Kayla Johnson, have concerns about these fines.

Johnson has received several parking tickets in her first year. “I have got several tickets before. I always wonder where that money goes because I pay so much.”

According to Terry Wheeler, director of campus safety, money collected from all parking fines goes into a general operating fund for Shorter College. About $12,000 is projected to be collected from parking violation fines.

However, parking violation fines are not intended to raise revenue. Wheeler said, "The fines are there to encourage compliance with parking rules and regulations. Since I have been at Shorter College, parking is the number one issue that I have had to deal with.” 

Shorter College has over 900 parking spots on its Rome campus, according to Wheeler.

“This is more than enough parking spots even though there are more students than parking spots, because every student is not on campus at the same time,” said Wheeler. He continued, "The real problem is that there are not enough convenient parking spots close to the school buildings.”

In recent years, rumors have emerged of Shorter’s plans to build a parking deck. According to Wheeler, however, administrators disregarded the idea following research, concluding that a parking deck would be too expensive and a misappropriation of funds.

This decision was further supported by a survey conducted by Wheeler concluding that “there is adequate parking for faculty, students and visitors if everyone would just park in there designated area.”

In addition to receiving money from parking violation fines, the school receives $50 from each student who purchases a parking decal. Senior Matt Harding said, “I don’t know where the money for our parking decals go because it does not take $50 to print those stickers.”

Money received from all decal sales goes directly into the general operating fund. According to the Shorter College Business Office, the general operating fund is an account that keeps Shorter College running on a day-to-day basis. 

Parking at Shorter College By Danielle Nieznanski, The Periscope staff writer danielle.nieznanski@students.shorter.edu Photo by Danielle Nieznanski A student worker writes a ticket and places it on the windshield where the driver of the car will be able to see it. Campus Safety is responsible for ticketing cars that do not park in proper locations. Photo by Danielle Nieznanski  Faculty/Staff that have been at Shorter for seven years and complete a requisition form can then have a plate ordered and installed on a parking space. Photo by Danielle Nieznanski Students that are Resident Assistants or Resident Directors have reserved parking spaces that allow them to park closer to the building that they live in. In the event of an emergency, these students have quicker access to their cars to help students. Photo by Danielle Nieznanski   The upper commuter lot is reserved mostly for faculty/staff parking; however, students feel it is not necessary to have as many spaces so they continue to park in the reserved spaces.