Amnesty for unpaid parking tickets

Columbia officials preparing plan to forgive all late fees on parking tickets

By ADAM BEAM - abeam@thestate.com

If you haven’t paid that overdue parking ticket, don’t worry — the city will forgive you.

And just to show there are no hard feelings, the city is planning to forgive all late fees during a special amnesty period, under a proposal officials plan to present to City Council next week.

City staff members are working out the details, including the dates for the amnesty period. But they already have the approval of Mayor Bob Coble and city manager Charles Austin.

“I think it would provide a motivation, an incentive, because people would realize that there is no threat of punitive action,” Austin said.

For years, Columbia has struggled to collect unpaid parking fines that over time can add up to millions of dollars.

The typical parking ticket for a meter violation is $7. If the parking ticket is not paid within seven days, a $5 late fee is added.

The city has 77,147 outstanding parking tickets, which amount to $1.94 million, collections banking manager Maria Melonas-Bates said.

The city budgets about $1.5 million a year in parking fines, which makes up about 20 percent of the city’s parking fund.

The city uses that money to pay for its parking services, including maintenance and enforcement.

The city normally transfers $1 million from the parking fund to the general fund, which pays for such basic services as police and fire protection.

The city also borrows money against the parking fund when it builds parking garages. The healthier the fund, the lower the interest rate the city will have to pay on the loan.

Recently, the city’s parking fund was rated BBB+ by Standard and Poor’s, the first time the agency rated the city’s fund. BBB+ means the fund has “adequate protection” but is more susceptible to adverse economic conditions and changing circumstances.

“There is no worse service we could do to our citizens than to damage our credit,” finance director Missy Caughman said. “We need to keep the fund healthy by keeping our collections up, and generate revenue needed to operate the system.”

City officials have talked about offering amnesty for late parking tickets but never followed through. But with the city possibly raising taxes and water and sewer fees for the next budget year — and still not having enough money to cover expenses — the amnesty plan represents an effort to shore up some of the city’s finances.

It’s not easy for the city to collect parking ticket fines.

When the city writes a parking ticket, it is written to your car, not your name. The city’s database of parking tickets lists tag numbers, not the names of the people who own those cars.

After a while, if you haven’t paid your ticket, the city buys a list of names that match the plate numbers from the highway department. Then, the city mails notices to ask for payment.

Sometimes the city gets the payment; most of the time it doesn’t.

And the letters only work for cars with South Carolina plates. Those cars from out of state — mostly college students and professors — usually get a free pass.

But the city has several other options for collecting its money.

First, if a parking monitor finds your car with more than $50 of unpaid parking tickets, your car will be towed. To get your car back, you have to pay the fine.

Another way is through parking boots, devices that lock up a vehicle’s tires so it can’t go anywhere. To unlock the boot, you have to pay your fine. Parking director John Spade is working with vendors to set up the city’s system.

A third way is amnesty.

That’s good news for people like Kelly Tabor, who said he has racked up $200 in parking tickets in the past four months — $85 of which he hasn’t paid off.

Tabor, who owns the Good for the Sole shoe shop in Five Points, said he does not have assigned parking at his store and has to feed a meter just like everyone else. He usually gets tickets when he gets caught up helping a customer and forgets to feed his meter.

“Unfortunately I have no parking for my store,” Tabor said as he put a quarter into a meter on Harden Street Tuesday afternoon. “I would like (amnesty) very much.”

Reach Beam at (803) 771-8405.