Parking at Black Hills State University (BHSU) is a rising issue among students. Public safety has plans to accommodate students the best they can but also must ensure safety regulations are followed.

“The purpose of a parking pass is to identify who is on campus, to regulate parking traffic and maintain parking spaces,” said Corey Compton, BHSU director of Public Safety said.

Students and staff pay for parking passes every school year. Ideas of making the parking pass something students can use throughout their four years at BHSU is something that can’t be done right now because of new annual budgets, maintenance and fees. Also, because the costs of the pass help fund some universities.

“We have work-study students which is why there is a rise in parking tickets,” Compton said. Since the beginning of the school year, parking tickets have risen. Public safety didn’t have the staff to make the proper rounds in the parking lots and issue tickets as often as they wanted.

Now that there are students to help assist public safety, they will ensure that vehicles have a proper and valid parking pass. If there is not one present, parking tickets will be issued. Public safety is also working on getting new shirts or jackets for their work study employees so they are noticeable and look professional.

“It can affect a lot of things if you don’t pay your parking tickets,” Compton said.

General parking regulations are enforced Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Parking tickets can range from $30 to $100. Tickets can be issued for fire lane blocking, no permit, illegal handicap parking and more.

Most tickets must be paid within seven days otherwise an additional $15 will be added as a late fee. If a vehicle obtains $100 or more in fines the vehicle can be booted or towed until the fines are paid. Unpaid fines can impact school registration, academics, athletics and more.

In addition to enforcing parking regulations, the additional public safety staff is meant to ward off crime. There have been several incidents of cars being broken into and valuable things have been stolen because of an unlocked car.

“I can’t stress this enough but please lock your car,” Compton said.

It may seem like an unlikely thing, but it happens more than anyone expects, and public safety is looking out for the best interests of students and staff. “Just come and talk to us,” Compton said. “We are more than approachable.”

Public safety understands that they are located on a college campus and want to interact with students. They are aware that students can get stressed and overwhelmed with school, work and personal things and adding a parking ticket on top can cause more unnecessary issues.

Talking with them may excuse the ticket and fine completely. Compton’s priority is for the BHSU campus to be a safe space and community for everyone.

BHSU has an overflow parking issue within the residence halls. Parking tickets are given to students in the residence halls, who are parking on the curb and grass because there are no available parking spaces in the residence hall parking lots.

“There are not enough physical parking spots for the number of students we have in the residence halls,” Compton said.

The idea is that if there is no parking in the residence halls, that the overflow would park in the Jonas parking lot. It can sometimes be a walk for students to get to the residence halls and with winter weather the walk is all that more daunting.

Currently there are not any known plans of fixing the parking issue for the residence halls on campus.