Las Cruces, New Mexico, Threatens To Shut Off Public Utilities Unless Residents Pay Traffic Fines

In one New Mexico town you won’t just be in hot water for not paying your traffic fines, you won’t have any water at all.

Traffic violators in Las Cruces, New Mexico owe the city $600,000 in unpaid fines for running red lights and faced with budget woes town officials are making some big threats to get violators to pay up: Settle your fines or be forced to live without water, sewage and gas utilities, ABC News reports. By law the town can’t rely on the courts to recover the traffic fines, but thanks to a loophole they can stop providing residents with utilities if they are in debt to the town.

Las Cruces is just one of many cities across the country facing budget woes. Since 2009, Las Cruces' budget has shrank by $3.6 million, Las Cruces Sun-News reports. State-level budgets also hit local schools hard, with 135 teachers laid off in 2010, according to Las Cruces Sun-News.

Threatening to shut off utilities as a way to get residents to settle fines may be a first, but other towns have cut some municipal utilities outright due to budget constraints. New Hampshire recently announced it would be turning off some 100 street lamps this summer after the state's department of transportation saw its budget cut in half, according to the Nashua Telegraph. Meanwhile, Detroit is currently debating a measure to privatize public utilities in order to save $250 million in lighting costs, the Detroit Free Press reports.

But some state and local governments have come up with more creative ways to save money in recent years. Texas public schools are now selling advertising space on buses and buildings in order to cope with a statewide $5.4 billion cut in education funding. Baltimore, meanwhile, has put several historic buildings up for sale to get its budget woes under control.

But perhaps most alarming, the police department in Smithfield, North Carolina said it would stop responding to some 911 calls because the town is short on gas money.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article wrongly stated local municipalities fund the Las Cruces public school system.

Check out some other unexpected budget cuts below:

Comments

[stellaone23]

10:43 AM on 05/22/2012

aren't homes with no running water or sewage considered uninhabitable? this would then force people, who can't afford to pay the fines, out of their homes. i'd love to know how many of those people are already unemployed and struggling to just survive as it is.

[jerich4]

06:53 PM on 07/10/2012

This is following the age old tradition of fixing one problem by causing another much bigger problem, the real question is where are these people suppose to go for water and bathrooms AND are they still expected to pay the bill. I guess the idea of maybe trying to move these people onto some type of structured payment plan was a total non starter though.

[stellaone23]

10:39 AM on 05/22/2012

and all because they refuse to raise taxes on the people who can most afford it. ah well, it was a somewhat nice experiment while it lasted.

[joel4578]

06:02 PM on 05/08/2012

12 gauge= birdshot=traffic light cameras=peace on earth.

[joel4578]

06:01 PM on 05/08/2012

You Huffington Puffingtons didn't like that one huh?

[Curbrunner]

08:32 PM on 02/15/2013

Try a lake for your trolling.

[joel4578]

06:00 PM on 05/08/2012

Someone someday is going to go to an intersection and use a 12 gauge shotgun, with bird shot on those traffic cameras. Mark this down now. It will be the new "shot heard 'round the world"

[jerich4]

06:54 PM on 07/10/2012

I would be content with a nice heavy caliber paint ball gun.

[BUSFREAK]

11:54 PM on 05/07/2012

Guess the the hope and change thing just isn't working out. I think the word now is Forward.

[codifex]

09:31 PM on 05/13/2012

Yeah, we had hope there would be change; but it was blocked by the Republicans. Better luck in term two.

[jerich4]

06:55 PM on 07/10/2012

We still have hope, and we got change, just not the change we wanted, we wanted progress towards making the country better, unfortunately the congress changed from making bad decisions to stupid ones. Not quit what we had in mind at the time.

[KarmaPatrol]

12:49 PM on 04/30/2012

Definitely no soup for you...

[calico cat]

10:10 PM on 04/29/2012

Someone with authority (a big booming voice....'God'?) needs to let 'the State' (the ones who think they're God?) know that the answer is to cull the size of the state to match the health of the body of the country (city, state, whatever). I watch Americans scramble trying to figure out who's going to pay for what and how to squeeze it out of a population making do with less income when the costs should not be as high as they are in the first place....it is all bloat.

[Claudia L]

06:43 PM on 05/13/2012

This is true but most people in the US have no idea what anything costs. They refuse to acknowledge that it costs $12,000 a year for 12 years to educate a child ($144,000) and that it costs about $28,000 from pre-postnatal to have a baby. Their taxes & insurance companies pay and sometimes they never get the bill. No one has figured how many years it would take for someone making $12 and Hour to pay enough taxes to cover even one child. AND they don't care. "Someone else will pay - not me".

[calico cat]

11:19 PM on 05/15/2012

Somebody's paying. I know I'm expected to pay obscene amounts for 'health care' (that is, feeding the insurance / bureacracy / big pharma / BLOAT) in the States and it's increased about tenfold in just a few years. Soon there'll be nobody with vitality left to pay.

[jedisabre]

07:19 PM on 04/29/2012

Las Cruces is so poor now they are threatening those who owe traffic fines without water which is essential to life..kind of a death threat? Wage garnishment broken out into several payments seems more reasonable and a better guarantee for recovering the fines, but the courts cannot do this? What kind of town is that?

[Razpooten]

09:14 PM on 04/29/2012

One managed by inept officials, apperantly.

[jedisabre]

09:17 PM on 04/29/2012

This is true.

[Claudia L]

06:45 PM on 05/13/2012

They should just impound the guilty cars and sell them.

[jedisabre]

07:09 PM on 05/14/2012

Too funny!

[ipleathe5thh]

03:38 PM on 04/29/2012

This has got to be Illegal in some ways

I don't know how they do it in NM but where i live they threathen you with a warrant for your arrest if you don't pay. I had gotten a speeding ticket i pled guilty by mail but they claimed they never got my payment so they revoked my DL and issued a warrant for my arrest. and didn't even know. So i had to pay twice the amount of the orginal ticket and pay to get my DL back

[Razpooten]

09:16 PM on 04/29/2012

Trafice fines are one of the bigest revenue sources for many municipalities. I went to a police station in Texas once and they had more check out counters than a super Walmart, and they work at night and weekends.

[BUSFREAK]

11:56 PM on 05/07/2012

I live in Texas and they don't BS.

[LeeCalif]

02:58 PM on 04/29/2012

Whatever happens don't privatize a municipality's utilities !!!!!!

[oldwolf49]

07:26 PM on 04/29/2012

The next step.

[mikiao]

09:48 AM on 04/30/2012

But privatization will save us money....all the private companies keep telling us so. :D

[tuhloola]

01:44 PM on 04/29/2012

What a hair-brained, stupid idea !!! What happens if the "offender" has no utilities in his/her name ? What then ??? Only people who have utilities in their name get gouged, and those who don't, get off scott free? I can smell a court fight coming !!!

[ocgame9]

01:27 PM on 04/29/2012

Citation are the biggest scam since social security. Turn off your utilities. This is why you don't use any government products or services.

[redraspberry]

01:10 PM on 04/29/2012

Just like what is happening in Greece where they are shutting off electricity because they are using the utility to collect property taxes too.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/first-real-greek-bailout-electricity

[Sabrae]

01:07 PM on 04/29/2012

If they do this, and I question it's legality, they will lose federal funds.