Does my city get to keep the money from parking tickets, or does the cash have to go to the county public schools?
Plain-English summary
Wake County District Attorney C. Colon Willoughby, Jr. asked the AG whether the City of Raleigh's overtime parking fees were really penalties for breach of state penal law, in which case the "clear proceeds" had to go to the Wake County Schools under Article IX, Section 7 of the NC Constitution. Chief Deputy AG Andrew A. Vanore, Jr. concluded that the money stayed with the City because Raleigh had decriminalized its parking offenses.
The opinion turned on a single move in the Raleigh City Code. Section 11-2025(a) declared: "Pursuant to G.S. 160A-175, all criminal penalties for these violations as set out in G.S. § 14-4 are hereby removed." That sentence was load-bearing. Without it, G.S. § 14-4 would have made every parking violation a misdemeanor (a breach of "the penal laws of the state"), and the NC Supreme Court's decision in Cauble v. City of Asheville, 301 N.C. 340 (1980), would have routed the money to the county school fund. With it, parking violations became purely civil ordinance breaches, and the cash stayed with the city.
The AG quoted Cauble directly. The Supreme Court said the clear proceeds question came down to "whether the monies in dispute were collected for violations of the criminal laws of the state or for violations of city ordinances." Because G.S. § 14-4 reaches ordinance violations and makes them misdemeanors unless the council provides otherwise under G.S. § 160A-175(b), the choice belongs to the city. Decriminalize and keep the revenue; leave it criminal and feed the schools.
Currency note
This opinion was issued in 1997. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or remedy mentioned here. Article IX, Section 7 of the NC Constitution remains a live source of school-funding revenue questions, and Cauble still appears in NC clear-proceeds litigation; the underlying decriminalization mechanism in G.S. § 160A-175 also remains on the books, though the surrounding penalty and enforcement statutes have been amended several times since 1997.
Background and statutory framework
Article IX, Section 7 of the NC Constitution requires that "the clear proceeds of all penalties and forfeitures and of all fines collected in the several counties for any breach of the penal laws of the State, shall belong to and remain in the several counties, and shall be faithfully appropriated and used exclusively for maintaining free public schools." This is one of NC's oldest school-funding provisions, traceable to the 1868 Constitution.
The mechanism G.S. § 14-4(a) supplies is what turns a city or county ordinance violation into a "breach of the penal laws of the State." It makes ordinance violations misdemeanors by default. The same chapter contains the offramp: G.S. § 160A-175(b) lets a city council declare that violation of a specified ordinance "may not be punished as a misdemeanor or infraction" and instead carries a civil penalty. Together the two statutes hand municipalities a choice with revenue consequences. The Cauble line of cases enforced that choice. Asheville lost its parking revenue in 1980 because its ordinance had not been decriminalized; Raleigh kept its parking revenue in 1997 because Section 11-2025 had been.
Common questions
What does "clear proceeds" actually mean?
It means the net amount left after deducting administrative costs of collection. The constitutional provision says the proceeds "shall belong to and remain in the several counties," but the clear-proceeds calculation lets the collecting entity recover reasonable costs first. The AG's opinion does not address how those costs are calculated; that's a separate body of guidance.
Could a city decriminalize only some parking violations?
The opinion does not directly address selective decriminalization, but it relies on Raleigh's Section 11-2025, which decriminalized "all of Raleigh's parking offenses" wholesale. The mechanism in G.S. § 160A-175(b) operates ordinance-by-ordinance or, by its terms, on a specified ordinance, so a city could in principle decriminalize a subset, though that creates a mixed revenue stream where some parking fines feed the schools and others stay with the city.
Does decriminalization mean the city can charge whatever it wants?
No. A separate AG opinion from 1996 (Maximum Penalty That May Be Assessed for Violations of City Parking Ordinances) concluded that G.S. § 14-4(b), which sets a $50 cap for infraction-level parking violations, controls. Decriminalization changes the destination of the money, not the maximum amount.
What if a city has not decriminalized its parking ordinance?
Then Cauble controls. The proceeds belong to the county school fund. The city collects the money but does not get to keep it. That outcome was the entire point of the Cauble litigation: Asheville thought the money was municipal revenue; the Supreme Court said no, the constitutional school-fund provision attaches as soon as the violation is criminal.
Why is a Wake County DA asking this question?
The DA's office in NC has a role in administering forfeiture-and-fine accounting under Article IX, Section 7. When a clear-proceeds question runs through a county, the DA is often the natural channel to seek an AG opinion on whether a given local revenue stream belongs in the school-fund pipeline.
Source
- Landing page: https://ncdoj.gov/opinions/raleigh-city-overtime-parking-fees-fines-penalties-and-forfeitures/
Citations
- N.C. Const. art. IX, § 7
- N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-4
- N.C. Gen. Stat. § 160A-175
- N.C. Gen. Stat. § 160A-175(b)
- Cauble v. City of Asheville, 301 N.C. 340 (1980)
- Board of Education v. Henderson, 126 N.C. 689 (1900)
Original opinion text
September 16, 1997
The Honorable C. Colon Willoughy, Jr.
District Attorney
Tenth Judicial District
P. O. Box 31
Raleigh, NC 27602-0031
RE: Advisory Opinion; Raleigh City Overtime Parking Fees; Fines, Penalties and Forfeitures; Article IX, Section 7 of the North Carolina Constitution
Dear Mr. Willoughby:
You request our opinion whether monies collected by the City of Raleigh from motorists who violate its ordinance prohibiting overtime parking constitutes a penalty for a breach of a state penal law, the "clear proceeds" of which must be used for the Wake County Schools pursuant to Article IX, Section 7 of the North Carolina Constitution.
For reasons which follow, because the Raleigh City Code (copy enclosed) decriminalizes all of its parking offenses, it is our opinion that the monies collected by the City of Raleigh for violation of its ordinance prohibiting overtime parking belong to the City.
Section 11-2025 of the Raleigh City Code decriminalizes all of Raleigh's parking offenses. In light of the fact that Raleigh has decriminalized its overtime parking ordinance, the North Carolina Supreme Court's decision in Cauble v. City of Asheville, 301 N.C. 340 (1980) controls.
In Cauble, the Court concluded that because a violation of the parking ordinance was a misdemeanor and therefore a breach of the "penal laws of the state," the clear proceeds paid by motorists for violations of the overtime parking ordinance belong to the county school fund pursuant to Article IX, Section 7 of the North Carolina Constitution. The Cauble Court made crystal clear, however, that had the City decriminalized its parking ordinance, the overtime parking fees would not go to the county school fund, but would stay with the City. As the Cauble Court stated:
The inquiry addressed . . . was whether the monies in dispute were collected for violations of the criminal laws of the state or for violations of city ordinances. The Court [Board of Education v. Henderson, 126 N.C. 689 (1900)] determined that since G.S. § 14-4 makes violations of city ordinances misdemeanors, the sums in question were collected for breach of the State's penal laws.
We hold that the same result [as was reached by the Henderson Court] must ensue here. The Asheville Code makes it unlawful to park overtime. G.S. § 14-4 specifically makes criminal the violation of a city ordinance, unless 'the council shall provide otherwise' pursuant to G.S. § 160A-175(b). Thus, where, as here, the ordinances do not provide otherwise, a person who violates the overtime parking ordinance also breaches the penal law of the State. [Citations omitted.] Consequently, fines collected for overtime parking constitute fines collected for a breach of the penal laws of the State. We, therefore, hold that the clear proceeds of all penalties, forfeitures and fines collected for breaches of the ordinances in question remain in Buncombe County and be used exclusively for the maintenance of free public schools. [Emphasis supplied.] Id. at 344, 345.
As instructed by the Cauble Court, the Raleigh City Council in subsection (a) of Section 11-2025 declared: "Pursuant to G.S. 160A-175, all criminal penalties for these violations as set out in G.S. §14-4 are hereby removed." We conclude, therefore, since the Raleigh City overtime parking ordinance is not penal in nature, but is collected for a breach of the ordinance, the funds collected for parking overtime do not go to the public school fund but remain with the City for its use.
Should you have any other questions, please feel free to contact us.
Andrew A. Vanore, Jr.
Chief Deputy Attorney General