NIU students continue to spend hundreds of dollars a year on parking fines.

Some people park wherever they choose to regardless of the parking service rules, said Ron Pearson, coordinator of parking and traffic.

“Our goal is to change the behavior among students and visitors who park illegally while at NIU, not to raise fees and make income,” Pearson said.

Pearson said students need to educate themselves about campus parking rules.

“People need to know that it is not all right for them to park next to a fire hydrant and go to class,” Pearson said.

Pearson said some of the money received from fines is distributed for parking improvements, paying health care for parking service employers and hiring additional help.

Money also is put toward the operating cost for things like computers, utilities, automobile rentals from transportation and telephones, Pearson said.

Pearson said early fall seems to be the peak season when there are more cars on campus with people willing to risk getting a ticket.

“We haven’t seen a huge increase in parking fines since the increase in enrollment at NIU, but this might change after our new patroller is out in the parking lots patrolling,” Pearson said.

Fees that have been increased include the no-registration fee from $20 to $40, the no-parking fee from $20 to $40, the invalid permit fee, parking in the wrong space, from $20 to $40, parking in reserved spaces fee from $25 to $30 and restitution for ticket replacement fee from $10 to $20.

“Tickets and fines were raised by the parking committee to gain voluntary compliance of the rules, not to gain more revenue,” he said. “It was apparent that some of the violations weren’t changing the behaviors of students and visitors, so the committee decided to increase fines,” Pearson said.

Pearson said student permits will be the same price and have been the same for the past four years. Annual prices for students include brown permits for $25, orange permits for $60 and yellow permits for $60.

Pearson added that NIU parking services currently has no plans to build a new parking garage, but that they are always working on ways to improve parking.