Commissioners wait to carve up school speed zone funds

County commissioners are anxiously awaiting their shares of funds collected from school speed detection fees so that they can use the money as they see fit in their own districts.

“Just to put it plainly, we don’t get paid until everybody else gets paid,” Commissioner Oliver Gilbert III told commissioners as they discussed the first-ever annual report to the state of collections from the new detection system that is bringing in money from 70 school zones.

Commissioners get the last slice of those funds. “We get to allocate that money in our districts for public safety, road improvements, for however we see fit in our districts,” Mr. Gilbert said.

“I know we [the county] have received the funds,” commission Chairman Anthony Rodriguez said.

As Miami Today reported on Jan. 1, Miami-Dade’s first collections from the detection systems installed across 27 school zones totaled more than $17 million in the eight months ended July 31, 2025, according to a report from Mayor Daniella Levine Cava. Those funds came from 252,873 notices of violations in a new use of speed detection and enforcement systems under a contract with RedSpeed Georgia, which received $3,578,484 of the collections.

Mr. Rodriguez in 2023 sponsored the legislation that allowed use of road speed detection systems in 206 public and private school speed zones, piggybacking on a 2023 state law allowing counties to enforce speeds on school zone roadways using speed detection systems. Eight school zones with 18 detection systems were active at the start of the school year, with 70 systems in 27 zones fully operating by July 31.

Drivers contested 2,127 of the speeding notices, of which 1,598 were upheld at hearings, with only 531 dismissed – two-tenths of one percent.

Among the notices, 170,404 were paid and 75,468 were issued as uniform traffic citations. From the $17 million collected, the Florida Department of Revenue general fund got $3.4 million, the department’s Law Enforcement Criminal Justice Standards and Training Trust Fund $511,000, the county school district $2 million, the school crossing guard and recruitment retention program $852,000, the county’s program initiatives and public safety initiatives $6.6 million, and Red Speed got its share.

Commissioners were concerned about the $6.6 million in which each would share for chosen programs. Raquel Regalado asked for reports that link together actual speed zone collections with the amount anticipated in the county budget to see if projections are on track with spending plans. The mayor said the Office of Management and Budget will clarify that soon.

The office’s new director, Ray Baker, who was confirmed at the meeting, said that commissioners were asking the right question: “Are we going to have enough money ready for that bucket, the bucket that’s spread across your districts, to begin allocating and spending?”

RedSpeed buys, installs, operates and maintains the speed detection and enforcement systems. It also does the billing, collecting, and distributing of violation proceeds.

Penalties are assessed for speeding more than 10 miles above the limit in school zones that RedSpeed video equipment records. A traffic enforcement officer must issue citations, and the state requires that the officer have a clerk to handle the money.

Florida school zone limits range from 15 to 20 miles per hour when children are likely to be present. Fines for up to 9 miles over the school zone limit are $50, rising to $200 for 10 to 15 miles over the limit, and $300 for 25 to 29 miles. Over 30 miles above the limit, fines range from $250 to $500.