Vermont city relies on alternative to collect parking tickets

In Bennington, Vermont, local officials are attempting to use alternative means to collect unpaid parking tickets rather than rely on a debt collection agency, according to the Bennington Banner. The $25 parking tickets are rarely issued in the small town, but when a person has built up five delinquent tickets, the town boots the offender's car instead of sending the fines to collections. "They tend to pay when they can't move their car," town manager Stuart A. Hurd tells the news source. What Hurd is more worried about is the rapidly declining income the city is seeing from ticket collection, despite the fact that it's still issuing the same number of tickets per year. Specifically, the budget for annual traffic ticket revenue dropped from around $70,000 to close to $30,000 in 2012. "There's a problem with the state pursuing scofflaws," Hurd added, as quoted by the news source. "They simply suspend a license, but that doesn't get any money back to the municipality." Bennington is hoping to avoid an approach taken by Vermont's biggest city, Burlington, which plans to enforce a new rule starting July 1 that will refer all unpaid municipal tickets to collection agencies, the Burlington Free Press reports.