ALBANY – In a rare retreat for the state where local taxpayers are concerned, Governor Pataki has formally relinquished the state’s designs on nearly $23 million in traffic fines that have traditionally flowed into local government coffers.

Mr. Pataki signed legislation rescinding the provision first included in his executive budget proposed in January that stipulated that traffic fines be paid according to the infractions motorists were first charged with instead of those they eventually were convicted of in local traffic courts. Assemblyman Paul Tokasz, a Buffalo Democrat, for example had complained that one driver had nine speeding tickets reduced to parking tickets, avoiding potential increases in his insurance. But the driver agreed to pay a $600 fine for the last “parking” ticket by a local judge.

Practically speaking, the change would have meant fines for speeding tickets written by state troopers must go to the state treasury instead of local governments. Localities were authorized to impose an additional $10 surcharge on the tickets to cover the costs of adjudicating the cases.

Local officials lobbied hard against the change. Edward Farrell, head of the state Conference of Mayors, said that while his member mayors have always railed against state mandates on local taxpayers, the traffic fine provision went a step further by horning in on a revenue stream long used by local governments to fund local police agencies and town, city, and village courts.

“This was a direct attack upon local government’s revenue streams,” he said. “It was an incredibly bad precedent and in terms of the overall state budget, the amount of revenue to the state was less than the margin of rounding error.”

He likened the state’s attempt at capturing “local” revenue to the infamous – to local officials – proposal by Governor Cuomo in the state fiscal crisis of the early 1990s to tax local water systems to generate funds to pay for positions at the state Health Department. That attempt failed, too.

The traffic fine provision was initially approved in the state budget adopted by the state Legislature in August, but state Senator John Bonacic said legislators could not then excise it without rejecting the entire appropriation bill it was included in. The Assembly approved a bill in September eliminating the provision and the Senate did so in November. Mr. Pataki made the mea culpa final when he signed the bill on December 15.

“There was no intent to eliminate a revenue stream for local governments,” said Mr. Bonacic, the Senate’s sponsor of the bill. “When they realized how deep the revenue cut was, we knew we had to do something.”