Students who bought parking passes at the start of this semester may be surprised to know there was probably no need to — until last week.

In the spring, the university announced it bought a new ticketing system that uses license plate recognition software and costs about $25,000 a year — a $10,000 to $15,000 increase from the old system — with a one-time equipment and installation cost of around $100,000.

But until last week it had not been put to use.

“If someone with (a) green (parking pass) parked in (a) yellow (lot), they were given a warning,” said Troy Bruun, vice president of administration and financial reporting. “If they parked in a handicap spot without a sticker or a red parking lot, they were given a citation.”

That means students who purchased a green parking pass, which costs $75 a semester and $150 a year, could have been parking for free for the first half of the semester.

Initially, the university announced it would begin using the system in stages during the summer. Then the university warned faculty that it would begin issuing tickets after the first week of school. At the start of the school year, students were told the university would implement the new parking system September 1.

Although the university did not start issuing tickets with the system until after the midterm break, students were still charged full price for parking permits. Many students say they feel cheated.

“They could have spent that $100,000 on more parking spaces,” Senior Malcolm Lynch said. Lynch said parking has been a major issue since he began at the university.

Cooper Colglazier, a senior, said the parking issue on campus has compounded since fall of 2014, when the university began charging for on-campus parking permits.

“Once that parking system didn’t work, we paid $100,000 to fix a system we didn’t need,” Colglazier said.

Other students miss the old system.

“What’s so difficult about buying a hangtag and putting it on your mirror?” Freshman Sergio Soto said. Soto said he enjoyed seeing parking permits dangling from rearview mirrors around Wichita.

“You could see people all over town and you would know they were Shockers,” Soto said.

Student Body President Joseph Shepard said and Vice President Taben Azad have taken over the responsibility for dealing with the parking issue from the Campus Issues Chair Grace Sirois.

“Parking is probably the number one issue that students want addressed,” Shepard said. “So as the Student Government Association, that’s something we definitely want to make a priority — in collaboration with the administration.”

E-citations and Visitor App

Campus police announced last week, after issuing no citations for parking in student or faculty and staff parking halfway through the fall semester, that they will start enforcing parking passes for students and issuing parking tickets through the university email system.

The new ticketing system uses cameras located on parking services vehicles that automatically scan license plate numbers and run them against a database of people who have purchased parking passes. If the license tag is not registered in the system, the owner of the vehicle will be fined and issued a citation.

Visitors to the university who are not students or faculty will be given two hours of free parking, but are required to purchase a $5 day-pass to park more than two hours.

Students, faculty and staff will have no free parking options on campus for any amount of time under the new system.

Bruun said the university has provided an app for visitors to use who wanted to purchase $5 a day parking passes. Visitors will also receive four warnings before receiving a ticket, while students and faculty will immediately be ticketed and fined, Bruun said.

Anyone who is not registered in the university parking database will be looked up through the Department of Motor Vehicles and sent their tickets through the mail.

President Shepard said he thinks the system should be more clear so students know whether they will receive a ticket for using a different vehicle than what they have registered.

“We need to be sure we’re being consistent and fair,” Shepard said. “With that said, I think that it’s going to take a while to discover the flaws in this system.”

Where the money comes from

In 2015, parking services issued $241,839 in fines, and so far $20,938 in fines have been issued since July, according to Bruun.

The new system replaces hangtags that were displayed in rearview mirrors. Bruun said that the system was put in place to reduce costs of paper tags and improve efficiency.

“We’re getting rid of the paper and the time it took to wait in line to get hangtags,” Bruun said, referring to WSUs old system of parking passes. “Lots of universities have this.”

“The old hangtag system cost 10,000 to 15,000, and that’s one cost that went away,” he said.

Bruun said under the old parking system all students paid for parking equally — as part of their student fees — and now only students who purchase permits pay to maintain the parking lots.

“Students all paid fees before we implemented parking permits,” Bruun said.
“Now, just people who park are paying for parking.” he said. “All the lots cost money — removing snow isn’t free.”

Despite Bruun’s claim, students never saw a reduction in fees, which jumped from $652 for students enrolled in 15 credit hours in fiscal year 2014 — when the new parking permit system was implemented — to $698 in 2015. Student fees were $723 for fiscal year 2016. That’s a $71 increase in two years.

According to statistics from the university, parking ticket revenue increased by around 400 percent, from $55,339 for fiscal year 2014 to $241,839 in 2015, when the new system was implemented.

When asked what kind of profits the university receives from tickets and parking permits, Bruun said the university does not count on ticket revenue in their yearly budget.

‘Always an issue’

Better, more and cheaper parking on campus has been an almost constant plea from students for years.

Professor Dan Close went to WSU in the 1970s, when parking at the university was free. He said at that time the university had more parking spaces available and smaller enrollment, and students still complained.

“Students and faculty really don’t have much of a parking problem compared to students at KU and K-State,” Close said.

“It’s too bad that the university doesn’t include free parking for students, faculty and staff as a part of teaching or taking classes here. I do sympathize with students who have to pay for parking on top of tuition, books, and everything else. It’s a real hardship for many of them.”

“Years ago parking on campus used to be free,” Close said. “Although it’s not a huge burden for faculty to pay for parking, I think it often is for students.”

The university has proposed adding a parking garage — something students have been adamant about for years — on campus to alleviate student concerns.

Eric King, associate vice president for facilities, said that the parking garage will be built south of the Rhatigan Student Center. Construction will begin as early as December.

King said that students and faculty might have to pay every time they use the parking garage, whether they own a parking pass or not.

Shepard said that decision should be made with the input of student government in mind.

“If we want to students to come first we have to keep them in the front of our minds when we’re making decisions like this,” Shepard said.

“Parking is always going to be an issue but that doesn’t mean we put it to the backburner.

“We need to be in a conversation now — what are going to be the rules, what are the logistics, and who are we really trying to serve with this parking garage. Is it students? — is it community members? — is it staff? Because if it’s students, then no, I don’t think we should be charging them an additional fee if they’re already paying for a pass.”