Students with unpaid University parking tickets be warned: After years of letting some violators off the hook, the University can now track down car owners from out of state and those without University permits. Parking officials say a new electronic tracking system will allow them to collect.
“Let’s say we issued a ticket today. The next day the person sells [the car], then the DMV identifies the recent registered owner who didn’t even receive the ticket,”
Hicks said.
Problems also arose when vehicles belonging to students’ parents and University donors received collection notices about tickets that were more than a year old.
“Ideally, we treat everyone equally,” he said. “But parents dropping off students get tickets and then say, ‘Is this how UO treats parents?”
Hicks said he refers those people to an officer who handles appeals, but with situations more than a year old, “You have to think, ‘how far do we want to push this?’”
Hicks also said some people don’t even register their cars, sending DPS on “time-consuming searches” for the 40-50 percent of cited cars without parking permits.
Considering the University issues about 100 tickets a day, DPS has a three-year backlog of citations.
University senior Jeff Lamb said he received a citation Thanksgiving weekend of
his freshman year while he briefly ran up to his Hamilton Complex residence hall room.
“I never paid the parking ticket, and never heard another word about it,” Lamb said.
And he may not hear back, because DPS has yet to decide if it will pursue citations
from two or more years ago, Hicks said.
The need for a new system became apparent last December after an audit of DPS found poor accounting practices.
The auditor’s investigation discovered less cash revenue, prompting an internal examination of DPS. Audit results attributed the loss to poor handling of cash and deposits. Malfunctioning meters on East 15th Avenue also contributed, Hicks said.
Although Hicks said the cause of the audit and loss of parking ticket money are unrelated, parking officials recognized the need for revised ticket collection procedures because parking citations also account for missing revenue. In response to the audit, DPS also created a business manager position to oversee and provide assistance with all financial matters within the department.
“We’ve all pulled together to make sure things are done in a timely fashion,” Jennifer Creighton-Neiwert, DPS
business manager since mid-July, said.
Formerly an ASUO accounting coordinator, Creighton-Neiwert resigned from that post in February 2005. She worked as an accountant for University Physical Activity and Recreation Services before joining DPS.
Last week, she sent approximately 430 vehicle inquiries to ORIS regarding tickets dated July 1 to Aug. 31. The system costs $1.75 per successful inquiry.
In another attempt to curb delays in payment, DPS will allow students to charge parking tickets to their University accounts starting this fall.
Hicks said DPS also intends to eventually launch online payment options for parking tickets to help encourage people to pay up.
“It’s a lot more customer service-oriented, as much as citations go anyway,” Creighton-Neiwert said.