Louisville Metro Police say an e-mail circulating in the city that claims a 30-day speeding ticket campaign is being launched in order to generate $9 million for the city is false.
The e-mail claims that the department will have 50 traffic officers on duty 24-hours a day in order to write more tickets and generate revenue for the city and to pay police overtime.
No such ticket writing campaign is planned , said Alicia Smiley, a police spokeswoman.
Besides, coming up with $9 million in extra revenue through tickets would take a Herculean effort, according to figures provided by Kerri Richardson, a city spokeswoman.
Each speeding ticket fine includes a $20 fee that gets returned to local governments, but that money is distributed in various increments to all governments with police departments, to police departments based on the number of officers and to jurisdictions that transfer prisoners between jails. Other money collected on speeding tickets goes to the courts.
Even if the city got all of the $20 fee, Richardson said the traffic officers would have to ticket 450,000 people — more than half the city's population — in a month to reach $9 million.
City officials don't know how many people received the e-mail but it appeared to be circulating through several offices.