City owed $1 million in fines

The city of Kalispell is owed almost $1 million in unpaid traffic and criminal fines, some connected to cases filed as far back as 1999.

But much of that money probably will never materialize, officials said.

"In my opinion, if something is over five years old, there's little likelihood that it will be collected," said Kalispell Municipal Court Judge Heidi Ulbricht, who estimated about half the outstanding fines date back at least that far.

Still, in a year where the city is experiencing budget shortfalls, an infusion of what would amount to 9 percent of the general fund for fiscal 2008-09 would be a significant reprieve.

"It would be a significant help to the city of Kalispell if we had that money," said Mayor Pam Kennedy, who called the outstanding debt "alarming."

The city will look into ways to reduce that figure, with a City Council workshop tonight to discuss the problem, she said.

In an effort to cut costs and streamline the process of collecting unpaid fines, city officials privatized the job in July 2005. Instead of issuing arrest warrants for those who neglect to pay court-imposed fines, the city sends the outstanding debt to a collection agency.

Of the more than $980,000 now owed the city in unpaid fines, about $910,000 is 90 days past due and already in collections.

Ulbricht, who helped engineer the switch, said she considered the move to using a collections agency "extremely successful."

The newer process is more efficient and comes with a lower cost to the city, she said.

In the last three years, the city has referred 6,057 cases worth $2.36 million in past-due payments to Municipal Services Bureau, a Texas-based company that specializes in recovering governmental revenue. The company so far has recovered $460,000 on 4,968 of those cases.

During the same three years, revenue collected from court fines increased more than 16 percent - from $550,000 in fiscal 2005-06 to $642,000 in fiscal 2007-08, which ended June 30.

All traffic offenses and misdemeanor crimes, from assault to barking-dog violations, committed inside the city limits fall under the jurisdiction of Kalispell Municipal Court. People convicted of a crime or traffic offense often are ordered to pay fines, sometimes in installments, as part of their sentences.

And warrants issued for failure to pay court fines were extraditable only in Flathead County, while a collection agency can follow a person delinquent in his or her payments anywhere in the country for up to 10 years.

When the city switched from issuing warrants to sending unpaid fines to a collection agency, police had 800 unserved warrants for failure to pay, Ulbricht said.

"Definitely there is a better return value from using the collection agency rather than the police department," she said. "If the police department doesn't have any manpower to work that warrant it languishes in a drawer… It allows us to use automation to our advantage."

While police served as many of the warrants as possible, the department didn't have the resources to go out and actively seek those with warrants for failure to pay, Kalispell Police Chief Roger Nasset said.

"We're trying new things, and if there are ways to do it better we're open to those, too," he said.

Nasset described a "vicious cycle" where offenders neglect to pay their fines but then get turned out of jail because there is no room, only to welsh again. Then there is the segment of the population who simply refuse to pay their fines.

"We just keep finding ourselves back at the starting point," Nasset said.

And even when a warrant for failure to pay is served, there often is little room in the Flathead County Detention Center to hold nonviolent misdemeanor offenders. When the threat of punishment disappears, so does the incentive to pay fines.

"We have a limited resource pool between detention and law enforcement," said Ulbricht, stressing that a case sent to collections does not mean that the court relinquishes supervision over an offender. Defendants who fail to pay their fines violate the terms of their sentence and can be brought back into court to face stiffer penalties.

The city of Kalispell receives the entire amount of the collected fine, Ulbricht said. The defendant pays the company's collection fee, usually an additional 30 percent of the original fine.

Cases are generally sent to the collection agency 45 to 60 days after an offender fails to pay up, Ulbricht said. City governments in Billings and Great Falls also use Municipal Services Bureau to collect past-due court fines.

Reporter Nicholas Ledden can be reached at 758-4441 or by e-mail at nledden@dailyinterlake.com