Is the Administrative Fee in a McCullom Lake, IL DUI a scam?

I recently represented a client who was arrested for DUI.  Long story, short:  The DUI was dismissed.  Now I asked McCullom Lake to return the administrative fee ($500), and they promptly told me that all they could give back was about half of that?

Color me surprised.  If you collect the administrative fee (because you can), but the DUI gets dismissed, don’t you have to return the entire administrative fee?  It turns out that our local villages and cities believe the answer is no.  In many of the statutes that these villages drafted to collect this fee it says that if the driver is found not guilty that the fee will be returned, but if they dismiss the case that the fee is retained.

Which leads me to this conclusion:  If a city has one of these “we can charge you $500 for being arrested for DUI” laws, and they don’t have to give it back if THEY dismiss the case, wouldn’t it make sense for the cities and villages to arrest ten or twenty drivers per night for DUI (whether they were DUI or not)?  That way you make $5000 to $10,000 a night just for being a village or city.  Now I am not suggesting that villages or cities should do that … but what prevents them?

Many young kids want to be astronauts or firemen when they grow up.  I always wanted to be a village or a municipality.