Towns halt illegal ticketing

Bluffton offers to reimburse state for losses

By Daniel Brownstein

McClatchy Newspapers

BLUFFTON - For years, the town has kept all of the money generated by illegal local traffic tickets.

Now, Bluffton officials are trying to determine how to make things right by giving the state its share.

"I think we're obligated to determine how much money we collected and where it should have gone," said assistant town manager Tim Bennett.

That's going to be difficult because nobody's quite sure when the practice of voiding state tickets in exchange for guilty pleas began. It's been illegal since 1992, but that was well before any current employees began working for the town.

"I'm not sure anyone on our staff is going to know the answer to that," Bennett said.

Like Bluffton, Hardeeville also issued local traffic tickets, but on Monday, officials there denied short-changing the state.

After not returning repeated phone calls seeking comment about the tickets last week, Hardeeville officials announced on Monday that they would stop issuing city tickets.

"We acknowledge in reviewing our procedures that the adjustment of the citation to a careless-driving charge should have been done on the state uniform ticket," said city manager Shane Haynes in an e-mail. "We will correct our procedure on these types of fines ... beginning immediately."

Bluffton Police Chief David McAllister, who started work earlier this year, said town tickets have been issued since at least 1997, when the department's longest-serving employee joined the force.

On Friday, the town discontinued the use of town tickets and the careless-operation charge after being confronted by information gathered by The Island Packet of Hilton Head. Officials said they were unaware town tickets for moving violations were illegal.

The only plea deals Bluffton officers now will offer are reduced fines for the initial charge, said McAllister, who was hired as police chief earlier this year.