Written by Aerial Whiting
The prices of vehicle registration and parking tickets at Harding have increased this school year.
Registration stickers, which previously cost $25, currently cost $26. Fees for not having a registration sticker visible and parking in handicap slots or on handicap ramps have both increased from $30 to $32 per incident. Other violations have increased from $15 to $16.
“It still is a relatively small increase, and it’s the first increase that we’ve had in several years,” Public Safety Director Craig Russell said. “As a matter of fact, I can’t even remember the last time we had had an increase like that.”
The increased cost is not the result of limited parking space. In fact, unlike many schools, Harding has more parking spaces than it sells permits.
Rather, Russell and Mel Sansom, the vice president of finance, decided to raise prices in an effort to keep tuition down. Harding must pay iParq, the company that helps manage permits and citations, but the remaining revenue goes to Harding’s general fund, which is for the operating expenses of the university. None of the money goes directly to Public Safety, Russell said.
Russell feels that despite the price increase, Harding’s fees are reasonable compared to those of other schools.
“If you compare the cost of our tickets, the cost of registering your car on this campus to almost anywhere else, we’re significantly less than most other universities,” Russell said. “If you go to a lot of state schools, for instance, just to register your car can cost in the hundreds of dollars, not per year but per semester.”
The parking safety page of Harding’s Web site does not yet reflect the price increases, and some students have complained. However, Wayne Westerholm, manager of parking and transportation services, said he intends to update the page.
“I should be making the adjustments to [the page] probably this week,” Westerholm said.
Some students are under the impression that there are currently more Public Safety workers writing citations than in years past, but that is not so, according to Russell. There are one full-time and two part-time employees dedicated to writing citations, which was also the case last year. Russell said that one part-time employee left before the end of last year, and the department did not hire a replacement until August.
If there seems to be a great number of Public Safety officers checking for violations, it is because the department has people out all the time, Westerholm said.
