Drunken Drivers Could Pay Double Impound Fees

If approves a plan proposed Monday night, people whose cars were impounded after DUI arrests will have to pay an impound fee twice as high as everyone else.

During a work session after the regular board meeting on Monday, the board heard a plan from Village Administrator John Downs to raise the vehicle impound fee from $250 to $500—only if the driver had been drinking or doing drugs. The board told Downs to prepare a resolution for them to vote on during the Dec. 12 meeting.

Impound fees are not charged for every moving violation, just when police need to take the person's car.

"It's when the driver of a vehicle is physically arrested," police Chief Randy Rajewski said.

arrested 92 drunken drivers so far in 2011, Rajewski said. He hopes that number will stay below 100 by year's end.

The number of arrests has been decreasing since the impound fee was put into place in 2008. There were about 130 to 140 DUI arrests in 2009 and 120 to 125 in 2010, Rajewski said.

In that time, the number of total impound arrests (both drunken and sober drivers) dropped from 244 in 2009 to 250 in 2010 to 194 this year.

The chief hopes both trends continues. When considering how much money the fee hike would bring in, the village based their numbers on a 2012 that only sees 60 DUIs. This would bring an extra $15,000 a year into the village's coffers.

The impound fee change was part of .

Of the 11 fees village staff reviewed—which ranged from liquor licenses to false alarm fines and vehicle stickers—they only recommended two changes: the impound fee hike for drunken drivers and an increase in parking fees from $25 to $35. The village board rejected the latter change during Monday's work session.

Nine of the 11 fees were last changed in the 1990s. The impound fee wasn't put into place until 2008 and the false alarm fine was last adjusted in 1989.