Unpaid Fines a ‘Joke,’ so Library Asks Cops for Collection Help

The Lebanon (Pa.) Community Library has asked the local police to help with collecting unpaid fines, and “is considering” returning to collection services, though it stopped using an outside agency two years ago, according to Barbara Neil, the library’s head of circulation.

“Some people don’t think you’re serious; they think it’s a joke when you try to collect,” said Neil, which is why police were expected to issue citations to nearly 25 people this week to demonstrate the seriousness of the issue and try to recover at least some of the library’s annual losses.

According to Neil, the library lost $15,000 worth of materials last year because they weren’t returned by patrons. The loss is a significant portion of the library’s $80,000 annual budget.

The library had been working with the local Parker Collection Agency up until two years ago. The contract was ended, said Neil, “because (Parker) wasn’t getting much out of it. They cut their fee because we’re a non-profit, but they were still spending money on postage, and letters, and weren’t collecting very much. They were doing a fine job, people just weren’t paying.”

The library is considering going back to Parker or to a larger agency with the idea of continuing collection efforts and reporting delinquent accounts to credit bureaus, which hasn’t been done in the past, Neil said.

However, before taking that step, library officials want to clean up some old cases from the last few years, determine which ones should go to a collection agency, and make a decision on time limits before reporting a debt to a credit bureau. The decision whether or not to employ a collection agency will probably be made in four to five months, Neil said.

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