Commissioners to repeal county speeding ordinance

A 2012 ordinance passed with an eye toward bringing more money into the county has been rendered obsolete by a recent Indiana Court of Appeals decision.

The Putnam County Commissioners passed a speeding ordinance in early 2012 that established county speed limits on a number of county roads. The thinking at the time was that when such limits are established locally, they can be enforced as an ordinance violation rather than as a state traffic infraction.

As such, the county could keep 100 percent of the fines instead of the small percentage that returns to local agencies when a state infraction violation is written.

However, County Attorney Jim Ensley told the commissioners on Monday of the recent Court of Appeals decision that a local or county ordinance may not duplicate state law.

Since the state has established speed limits governing county roads as well as state and U.S. highways, such local ordinances are redundant.

Ensley did add that a local government may establish a lower speed limit in places it deems necessary, but that violations of the speed limits must still be paid through the state.

Ensley, who also prosecutes traffic cases as a deputy of the Putnam County Prosecutor's Office, said the ordinance violations were problematic from the start. They were difficult to prosecute because they lie outside of state law, which governs almost everything else the court system does.

With the county unable to enforce the ordinance, the repeal is not actually necessary, but Ensley recommended it simply to remove an obsolete law.

The repeal was not made on Monday, but will need to be advertised for passage at a future meeting.

The financial impact to the county of the court decision and subsequent repeal is likely to be minimal. Only 21 ordinance violations were filed in 2015, and just five have been written this year.

The program started with a bang in 2012, when the Putnam County Sheriff's Department wrote 447 ordinance violations in the 10 months the law was on the book.

That figure dropped precipitously to 97 in 2013 and again to 18 in 2014.

Sheriff Scott Stockton told the commissioners on Monday that his officers had already been made aware of the Court of Appeals decision and told to write all tickets as state infractions.