(Radio Iowa) – A bill introduced in the Iowa House would no longer let cities use a private company to issue tickets and collect fines for speeding or red light violations that are caught on camera. Gary Grant, a lobbyist for the City of Cedar Rapids, says it would be more expensive to have city staff handle the ticketing process.  “Using third parties is the most effective, efficient way to do this,” Grant says.

“If we’re no longer able to do that, then we’ll have to assign that work to city employees and in an era where we’re being encouraged to explore smaller, smarter governments and less pressure on local property taxes, we think this is the most efficient way to do it.” David Adelman is a lobbyist for one of the vendors that handles tickets issued for traffic camera violations. He also represents the largest cities in Iowa that are part of the Metropolitan Coalition.

“This piece of legislation we believe in kind of the manner of efficiency and the manner of DOGE, is taking a step backwards,” Adelman says. “By providing a third party to (issue) the citation and collect the fine is allowing the cities to do more with less.” The bill also would end the confiscation of state income tax refunds from those who refuse to pay the fines generated by traffic camera tickets.

Representative Daniel Gosa, a Democrat from Davenport, opposes the bill, including that part of it. “If you don’t have any teeth in something, then it really has no meaning behind it,” Gosa says. “If a kid’s bad in school, you want that kid to go to detention, but if there are no repercussions for that, they’re just going to keep doing what they’re doing.” The bill cleared initial SUB-committee review today (Tuesday), but the bill’s floor manager says at this point he wouldn’t support bringing it up for a vote in a House committee.

A state law that took effect July 1st set new parameters for traffic enforcement devices and has led to a 44 percent reduction in the number of traffic cameras placed around the state.