What do the courts need to do to process school bus safety camera generated violations?
In the 2011 Washington State Legislative session, Bill 5540 passed which allowed local school districts to install school bus safety cameras. The cameras can be used to generate photo enforced infractions for RCW 46.61.370 "Passing a School Bus." The school districts will contract with the photo enforcement vendors for their services and should contact the local court and law enforcement agency regarding the process for issuing and receiving these violations.
Because these are photo enforced violations, they must be processed the same as a parking violation; the state-wide law table entry for the RCW cannot be used. Jurisdictions that will be receiving these violations will need to enter RCW 46.61.370.1 into their local law table as a Parking Infraction using the Fine/Penalty Schedule Update screen.
The recommended FPSU entry is as follows:
- Case Type: PR
- Caseload Case Type: IP
- All flags are set to no (N).
- Delinquent amount is set by local code.
- ***Penalty amount set by statute is $428 effective 1/1/2023.
- Recommended BARS Code to use: 354.00.00 or 354.00.03 (to separate photo enforcement violation revenue from parking violation revenue).
- Effective Date: Determined by the School District
- In addition, a new Violation Code must be added to the Parking Violation Codes (PRKVIO) Table. Reminder: The Result Value field must match the law number entered in FPSU exactly in order for the parking violation to work. See also eService Answer - Cannot Enter a Parking Violation Using a Parking Violation Code Just Added).
A series of Cost Fee Codes were added to allow the courts to receipt payments received from photo enforcement vendors or defendants, based on the school district where the citation was issued.
- The codes approved are SZA through SZS and SZZ.
- The Cost Fee Codes will be defined as BusCamSchDistA through BusCamSchDistS, plus a generic SchBusCamLocal (ZZ).
- Each court will assign a code to represent the school districts within their jurisdiction that are issuing these photo enforced violations.
- This is similar to the way local jurisdictions determine which DNA Cost Fee Code (DN1 thru DN9) to use, depending on which agency did the actual collection.
- See eService Answer - Accounting in JIS for School Bus Safety Camera Violations for more detailed information.
NOTE: The infraction forms used for photo enforcement must be approved by the Administrative Office of the Courts prior to them being used to cite defendants.
RN id: 2217