At its last meeting before the new term begins, city councillors will be asked to write off $3.45 million in unpaid provincial offences fines, including parking and other offences.
A staff report says in total, the city is owed $19.8 million in defaulted fines, and several tools are used to try and get that money, ranging from small claims court to adding the amounts to the person's property tax.
The current writeoff is something Greater Sudbury has been delaying since amalgamation, the report says. In 2000, the province transferred responsibility for operating provincial offences court to municipalities.
At the time, “the vast majority of municipalities undertook large writeoffs of the fines they inherited from the province which they deemed to be uncollectable,” the report says. “The Ministry of the Attorney General recommends that accounts receivable should be reviewed regularly to identify potential writeoffs and to identify accounts deemed uncollectable.
“However, the City of Greater Sudbury never carried out an initial writeoff of the provincial offences fines it now was owed.”
The current writeoff included more than $33,000 dating back to 1960-1979, but the majority – $2.31 million – occurred between 1990-1999. Unpaid fines from 2000-2010 total $940,000, while the total from 2011-2018 is $56,655.
“It should be noted that all defaulted fines with offence dates prior to 2011 have been part of five separate collection agency placements, and none of the collection agencies have been successful at collecting the fines,” the report said.
“It should be stressed that POA defaulted fines which are written off are done so only for accounting purposes. The writeoff does not absolve a convicted offender from the requirement to pay the fine, as debts to the Crown are owed in perpetuity and are never forgiven.”
The city has several options in place to collect the money. A court can impose a payment plan, or an individual can contact the office and make arrangements themselves. Fines can also be collected when the person tries to renew a license plate or their driver's licence. They can take offenders to small claims court, and, since June 2017, they can add the amount to property taxes in some cases.
“The title of the property must be held solely in the offender’s name in order to use this tool,” the report said. “The implementation of this tool has been a success, as the POA office has collected $104,115 through property tax roll collection since June of 2017.”
