New Yorkers owe at least $2.1 billion in unpaid fines to the city: Here are the areas where they have racked up the most violations

Along with failing to pay more than a billion dollars in parking and speeding tickets, New York scofflaws are also skirting the system for violations on a host of other offenses, according to the Independent Budget Office’s April 5 report.

Those violations, accrued over a six-year period, are from three primary sources including $150 million in lienable property charges and $940 million in unpaid penalties from the city’s Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (OATH), the IBO reported.

Along with $1 billion in unpaid parking and speeding tickets, the IBO estimates the total unpaid amount from these three sources since 2017 is around $2.1 billion. 

According to the IBO report, “these three measures are by no means exhaustive, and are likely an undercount of the total amount of debt that the city is owed.” Other areas not included are sales, income, business taxes, water and sewer charges, and cash bail and bail bonds.

The other departments that accounted for 97% of total fine revenue in 2022 are the Departments of Environmental Protection, Housing Preservation and Development, Health and Mental Hygiene, and Consumer Affairs.

Here is a breakdown of the three big fine hitters for New York City, according to the most recent IBO report.

Parking & speeding, red light, and bus lane violations

As of March 10, there were more than $1 billion in unpaid fines from 2017 through 2022. 

The Department of Finance’s New York City Parking Violations Bureau successfully collected $916 million in calendar year 2022 from parking violations and camera-generated fines for speeding and running red lights. The total amount levied was $1.3 billion, with 29% going unpaid.