The City of San Francisco has a new ordinance concerning off street parking and the requirements for operators to have certain types of revenue control equipment. You can read it here.
I just came from an interview with the Tax Administrator of San Francisco, George Putris, and his staff and these are really nice folks but they seem to have bitten off a bit more than they can chew, I think.
They are convinced that auditing parking garages is relatively easy and that their internal audit staff should have no problem with the 600 or so garages in the city. They also think all Revenue control equipment is generally the same and now that the cost has come way down, it should be fairly simple for those uncontrolled garages in the city to pick up some good equipment to meets the ordinance’s requirements.
Basically, the system must give an entry ticket, a receipt on exit showing in, out, and amount paid, including tax. Also it must have an audit tape so all transactions are recorded, either on paper or on a bomb proof hard drive. The transactions must all be numbered and show any canceled transactions at the exit terminal (assuming its manned.) If it isn’t, then so be it. That’s about it.
I’m sure that of line equipment with stand alone ticket dispensers and cash registers can meet these requirements just fine, as can fully on line, real time systems.
Oh, they are going for a 1.5% lost ticket count. If they audit some time and find more than 1.5% of the tickets lost, that won’t cause a fine, but may trigger and audit.
Article underway for PT. Look for it in January.
JVH
