Syracuse officials outline expanded online portal, staffing and collection plans for municipal violations

Leah Whitmer, director and chief administrative law judge for the Municipal Violations Bureau (MVB), told Syracuse City councilors the bureau will roll out a municipal violations self-service portal next month and add kiosks in the office to let residents view ticket evidence, dispute citations and schedule hearings online.

Whitmer said the AIMS web portal will let constituents “view any evidence that the city has” and choose whether to dispute or pay. “Were trying to meet people where they are and provide due process on all of these tickets,” she said. She added that constituents are “entitled to a day in court to come in and be heard.”

The portal and in-office kiosks are intended to speed staff work that is now manual: people must complete paper forms and staff must log and email evidence. Whitmer said the change should reduce staff time spent on data entry and increase frontline constituent service while allowing people to upload evidence, request ex parte (paper-only) reviews or schedule in-person or virtual hearings.

Why it matters: The changes accompany a broader expansion of the bureau's responsibilities and workloads, including adjudicating noncompliant property-code violations from the Department of Codes, health and sanitation "illegal set-out" cart violations from the Department of Public Works (DPW), and hearings tied to automated enforcement programs such as school-bus stop-arm cameras. Whitmer said the city recently had state approval for a tax-rollover law that will allow legacy unpaid fines to be transferred to property tax bills in future annual rollovers.

Key operational and budget items

- Staffing and pay: Whitmer asked for a larger pool of part-time administrative law judges (ALJs) paid hourly and proposed increasing the standard part-time ALJ hourly rate from $125 to $158 to stay competitive with the New York State assigned-counsel rate. She said the BAA must also maintain a separate appeals panel whose members cannot be the initial hearing judges.

- Temporary services pot: Whitmer said she asked that temporary-services funding be set as a flat $300,000 figure to give flexibility to cover hourly/part-time ALJs; she noted a possible typo in her initial submission and that current budget lines showed a smaller amount.

- Collections and tax rollover: The council was told the state-signed tax-rollover legislation is in effect and will be used going forward to move eligible unpaid BAA fines to the property-tax roll at the next applicable annual rollover period. Whitmer said the first opportunity to roll eligible BAA items into taxes would be the May rollover window identified in the hearing (transcript reference: “May ’26” was cited in committee discussion). She emphasized the bureau is still building the technical process to mark eligibility and produce required notices.

- Evidence, notices and certified service: Whitmer said all tickets are currently served by certified mail pursuant to New York state requirements for service, and that moving cases into AIMS will make notices and additional automated reminders easier to generate.

Illegal set-outs (DPW cart violations)

Whitmer reported about 5,600 cart or illegal-setout tickets issued so far this fiscal year and said the compliance rate for those tickets is above 60 percent, with roughly 27 percent of cases resulting in fines and about 6 percent classified as recent warnings (inside the 30-day dispute window). She said DPW crews take before-and-after photos and that those images will be available in the portal to reduce disputes by clarifying what occurred.

Automated enforcement and school-bus stop-arm cameras

Whitmer reviewed early volume projections submitted by Genoptic, the vendor operating camera-enabled enforcement, and told councilors daily ticket volumes could be high during the warning and initial enforcement period. She cautioned that vendor estimates vary and that other municipalities' data were not directly comparable. The city's initial automated-enforcement rollouts will include a warning period; Whitmer said Genoptic will geofence areas and coordinate with the Syracuse Police Department and the city to reduce erroneous notices.

Language access and outreach

Councilors raised concerns about the portal and kiosks offering only English by default. Whitmer said AIMS currently supports English and French (the vendor's French support exists because of Canadian clients) and that expanding language support would require vendor work and additional funding. She said staff will continue to provide in-person assistance, use language-line services by phone and supply paper dispute forms in English in office where needed.

Operational context and metrics

Whitmer said about 52 percent of people who requested a BAA hearing resolved violations within 30 days after the hearing decision and that many more correct violations before hearings occur. She stressed that the bureau's goal is compliance rather than fines. Whitmer also warned councilors the bureau risks falling back into hearing backlogs without the requested hourly funding and part-time judge capacity, particularly as automated enforcement and expanded ticketing increase caseloads.

Formal action recorded

The meeting adjourned after a motion; the transcript records a motion, a second and the meeting closing without a roll-call tally.

What to watch next

Whitmer said the AIMS self-service portal would move from a soft launch to a full launch mid-month, the city will continue to pilot automated-enforcement systems with Genoptic and SPD review before issuing tickets, and staff will work with digital services, API and the payment center to prepare data for future tax rollovers.

Ending: The committee requested updated training for Codes inspectors on photo capture and referral processes, and Whitmer said the bureau would continue community outreach to landlords, tenant groups and law clinics to explain hearing procedures and rights.