Delray out to collect old fines for parking

12,000 unpaid tickets could bring millions for city

Did you forget to pay that parking ticket you got on Delray Beach’s Atlantic Avenue years ago?

It now may cost you anywhere from $15 to $475, in addition to late fees.

More than 12,000 people ticketed in Delray have started getting billed for old parking tickets, some of which date to 2008.

Delray Beach neglected to send about $2.2 million in unpaid billings to a collection agency from February 2016 to November, said Laura Thezine, acting finance director for the city.

Thezine said the problem happened after the city switched collection agencies. “During the transition, we didn’t send any collections” to the new agency, she said.

The unpaid bills include more than $1 million in unpaid parking tickets. The city’s new collection agency is trying to claw back fines from 12,538 parking violations.

While some tickets date to 2008, others are as recent as last year, records show.

Nearly half of all the tickets are for going over the time limit on a parking meter, records show.

The stiffest fine, for $475,

stems from illegally parking in handicapped spots, of which there were 266 unpaid violations.

The backlog came about when the previous finance director failed to pass information along to the city’s new collection agency, said City Commissioner Mitch Katz.

In an email obtained by Sun Sentinel news partner CBS12, former City Finance Director Jeff Snyder told Katz that he didn’t “have a good answer, other than to say that this slipped through the cracks and I dropped the ball.”

Katz is pushing the city to hire an independent city auditor to help prevent these kinds of mistakes in the future, he said. In the meantime, the city needs to collect on the the unpaid billings, he said.

“If you owe a parking ticket, you should pay it,” Katz said. “Whatever [the city] can get from the millions that are sitting out there, we should go after it.”

The unpaid bills also include about $1.2 million for emergency medical services.

Thezine doesn’t expect the money to flood the city’s coffers this year, but said the money is coming in, she said. “They are working toward all those past-due accounts. The money is coming, but very slowly,” Thezine said.

To pay for a parking citation, head to the lobby of the Delray Beach Police Department at 300 W. Atlantic Ave., Delray Beach. To dispute a parking ticket, call the department at 561-243-7888 Ext. 2922.

If your ticket has been sent to a collection agency, call the collection agency, said police spokeswoman Dani Moschella.

STAFF FILE PHOTO A collection agency has started billing for more than 12,000 tickets, some of which date to 2008.