The Birmingham City Council on Tuesday voted to place an administrative fee of $3 on parking tickets that are past due for more than 30 days. The body, however, rejected a suggestion by the mayor and city transportation officials to increase parking fines by $10, with councilors saying the city needs to focus on enforcement before raising fines.

“There has been no effort to date to have people pay the citation. None. We don’t even mail them a letter. So why would we increase fines without first trying to do that?” asked Councilor Hunter Williams.

City transportation officials said both measures are part of a foundational change of the city’s parking violation infrastructure that leaders hope will improve compliance levels. That change includes new software for employees and a new website for the public.

James Fowler, the city’s chief of public infrastructure, told the council Tuesday that the public has historically viewed the city as lax in enforcing parking violations. He said only about one in five parking tickets gets paid, which has created a backlog of about 700,000 unpaid violations.

“Our fines are so low that people are choosing to just opt out of the system entirely because the price incentive just doesn’t make sense for them to comply,” Fowler said.

“I think they’re opting out because it’s not enforced,” Councilor Crystal Smitherman said.

According to city staff, the $3 administrative fee will pay for employees to access Department of Motor Vehicle records of parking violators as well as pay the postage and paper to mail those violators a notice that their parking ticket is 30 days overdue.

The measures approved Tuesday also allow the city to send unpaid tickets to collections. Federal law, however, prevents unpaid parking tickets from affecting residents’ credit scores, according to a city attorney.

Mayor Randall Woodfin told the council that Birmingham’s parking violation rates are below those of many cities with populations at 200,000 or more. He added that city leaders haven’t increased the fines since before 2008.

Williams asked the mayor how many vehicles have been towed since the council passed a measure a year ago allowing the city to remove vehicles with three or more overdue parking violations.

Woodfin said there have been none because city workers need the software and DMV records called for in Tuesday’s proposals before such work could be done.

While the council chose not to accept the proposed general increase of $10 in parking fees, it voted to keep language in the resolution that created fines for a few violations that previously had no charge. For example, the city previously didn’t impose a penalty for parking in an alleyway. That offense now carries a $15 fine.

The mayor told the council the changes would take a minimum of 60 days to take effect.

For Birmingham residents who receive a ticket for an expired parking meter, the violation will still cost $15. That would put the Magic City in line with Montgomery, which increased its rate from $10 to $15 in 2014. Huntsville charges $10 for a meter violation with another $10 for excessive overtime.