city police out of funds

I read the other day that the vigili urbani are staying home because the city ran out of money to pay them. While this is probably just a ploy to improve work conditions, perhaps justifiably, it occured to me that it defies economic logic. If the vigili were out doing their job fining cars for traffic violations of which we all know there are thousands at any given moment, the city's coffers would be overflowing with more than enough funds to pay the police adequately, improve public transit, build new schools, clean up the city, etc.