Although most students complain about receiving parking tickets on campus, Department of Public Safety officials say the money from the tickets is used to benefit students.

Peggy Biskner, office coordinator for the DPS parking division, said the revenue from tickets, parking permit sales and parking meters is used in a variety of ways.

“Basically, it’s used to cover our operating expenses, which would be salaries and wages,” she said. “It is also put towards general operating expenses for the office.”

Biskner said the revenue supports several big projects DPS is working on.

“The money we get from that is basically our total income,” she said. “It also goes towards the capital projects, which would be the big-dollar things that we use for parking lot improvements.”

Biskner said the capital projects usually are three- or five-year plans.

“The ISU Center is a huge capital project that we are putting money aside for, and we hope to get started on that next year,” she said. “One of the other things we have a big-dollar expense on is the Orange Route of CyRide. It’s a free service for students and staff.”

Other expenses include computer services, equipment and general maintenance for the offices, she said.

Biskner said a university transportation advisory council helps decide where the money should be spent.

“They make recommendations to the Vice President for Business and Finance [Warren Madden] as to where they feel the money should go towards,” she said.

DPS Director Loras Jaeger said most of the projects the council considers are long term.

Jaeger said the parking ticket revenue is a great help in maintaining some DPS programs.

“There’s a paving management system in place now that we’ll be using to update parking lots on campus,” he said. “Those parking tickets also go a long way towards paying for the free shuttle for students from the ISU Center. It also helps pay for the Help Van.”

Jaeger said DPS is exploring various future goals for the money.

“We are also constantly looking at how to install new parking stalls on central campus, and we will also continue to explore various options on how to do that,” he said.