Company behind NY's red light and speed cameras wins contracts despite lawsuits

NEW YORK - Meet the company behind New York’s red light and speed cameras: Verra Mobility Corporation.

The company, headquartered out of Arizona, has secured contracts on both the city and state level, raking in hundreds of millions of dollars. But this same company has also been at the center of lawsuits here in the city and across the country. 

Despite the controversy, New York keeps giving Verra contracts.

Beginning in 2020, as first reported by the Daily News, a whistleblower came forward alleging that Verra was overcharging the city for unnecessary work, which led the de Blasio administration to sue the company.

As a result of the whistleblower’s accusations, in March 2021, the Department of Investigation designated a monitor to oversee Verra’s work while this case was playing out. According to the agreement obtained by FOX 5 News, this monitor will likely be overseeing Verra until March 2024 or later.  

But a few months later, despite this ongoing lawsuit, the de Blasio administration then gave Verra a separate contract for school zone cameras. Verra secured this contract for $222 million.

It wasn’t until the end of 2021 that the city agreed to a $1.2 million settlement with Verra.

Just two months later, in January 2022, the city Department of Transportation gave Verra yet another contract to maintain its red light cameras. This time the contract was worth $367 million.

The chair of the Oversight and Investigations Committee, Councilwoman Gale Brewer, questioned why this company has continued to receive the bulk of these red light speed camera contracts.

"When a company fires a whistleblower, puts too much money into lobbyists, and has a shady record, that’s exactly what you should be looking for - other competitors," Councilwoman Brewer said.

While this all has been playing out on the city level, the state also has invested interests with Verra.

During the 2021-2022 legislative cycle, Verra - otherwise known as American Traffic Solutions - contributed over $100,000 to Democratic lawmakers while the NYC 24/7 speed camera program was up for debate. The company also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to lobby government officials.

Despite the city’s lawsuit and the fact that Verra is still being monitored by the city, the company won two state contracts with the State Department of Transportation and the Thruway Authority for speed cameras in work zones.

On August 4, 2022, these two state contracts were officially approved by the state comptroller and will last until 2025.

About a month after this state contract was finalized, on September 15, 2022, Verra contributed $5,000 to Governor Kathy Hochul’s campaign.

While there are only a handful of companies that operate red light and speed cameras, there was another company, Conduent, that bid on the state contracts, but lost the bid. They tried to contest it with the State Comptroller’s Office but were unsuccessful.

In a statement, the comptroller’s office said they look only at the contracts themselves, not at the background of the company.

"Neither the Comptroller nor OSC had any involvement in the awarding of this contract," the comptroller's office said.

The contract was awarded by the state Department of Transportation which said that they selected Verra over Conduent because the company offered the "best value proposal."

The Department of Transportation said it did not factor in the city’s lawsuit against Verra, nor that the city is still currently overseeing this company’s work, into its decision to hire Verra.

The DOT said in a statement that they "Hold all vendors to standards of the contract and law and expect them to perform accordingly."

They also said that Verra does not receive a share of the revenue from the red-light speed tickets. However, according to a recent report by Newsday, Verra is getting 40 percent of the fines collected from speed violations from the work-zone cameras on Long Island that were just recently rolled out.

We reached out to Verra for a response and a spokesperson for the company said that the city’s lawsuit was settled amicably.

However, in the settlement agreement obtained by FOX 5 NY, the de Blasio administration argued that they could have pursued civil charges against Verra for installing noncompliant electrical poles under the New York False Claims Act. However, they decided to opt for the settlement payment instead.

"Verra Mobility places the utmost importance on conducting business with the highest levels of integrity, and we promote transparency and openness with our government customers," a spokesperson for Verra said. "We are proud to partner with cities, states, and communities to improve road safety and help save lives."

Councilwoman Brewer says she has reached out to the Department of Investigation for an update on the city’s monitorship over the company.

"At the same time, we should be talking to the business community to find out how we could grow some of these other companies," Brewer said. "Maybe there are small companies now that need seed money or need support."

Governor Hochul’s office did not return a request for comment on the campaign donations.