I-Team: Springfield Parking Boots

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) - You may have noticed parking boots on cars throughout Springfield.  

The 22News I-Team discovers if the program is paying for itself.  

The booting program is modeled after a similar program in New Haven, Connecticut.  It's a way for the city of Springfield to collect back taxes faster than before.  The 22News I-Team followed the Springfield Parking Authority to see how effective the program is.

If you see your car getting booted, you're not going to be happy.

"We've had a few instances where we've had to call the police, we've had a few instances where the boots were stolen, but later recovered.  There have been a few instances where that didn't go smoothly", says Springfield Parking Authority Towing Manager Dan Jurkowski.  

Springfield started booting cars in July.  Your car can be booted if you're late paying your excise taxes or haven't paid a parking ticket.  Before this program, the only penalty was that you couldn't renew your license.  Stephen Longeran is the city of Springfield's treasurer and collector.  

"You renew your license every 5 years so we had a five year lag to get this (money)", says Longeran.

The Springfield Parking Authority looks for people who owe the city money using license plate readers.  Driving down Main Street we found two cars who owed the city money parked back to back and they got booted.

"Yeah I'm going to pay now", says the unidentified person who had his car booted. 

He continues, "I just did a transfer to my car and I moved, maybe they sent the letter to an old address, I gotta find out now."

If your car gets booted, you find a note with a number to call and how to pay what you owe.  You have 24 hours to pay, if not your car will get towed and you'll have to pay another $100 in a towing fee. 

The program seems to be working.  Springfield paid about $67,000 to start the program.  Since then more than 340 cars have been booted and the city has been paid back close to $90,000 in past due excise taxes and close to $20,000 in collecting unpaid parking tickets.  That's more than $40,000 they didn't have before.  All in just seven months.

"That doesn't take into account all the people that heard about the program and came in early.  But we have noticed an uptick in people coming to pay their excise", says Lonergan.

"Excise tax for this coming year just got sent out, in six months when those are overdue we'll get to boot more vehicles.  As long as there is an Excise tax, I assume we'll be doing this", says Jurkowski.

The tow truck driver told 22News he saw one woman try to drive off with the boot on her car.  She didn't get very far.