Politics & Government

Mayor: Village Won't Collect Fines From State Income Tax Refunds

Illinois officials approached Mayor Jim Holland about joining a state program that would let the village collect unpaid fines from residents's state income tax returns. Find out why Holland isn't keen on the idea.

Although it's a tempting opportunity that has attracted Chicago officials, Frankfort won't collect fines owed to the village by taking it out of residents's state income tax refunds, said Mayor Jim Holland last week at the village's Departmental Operations Committee meeting.

Recently, a representative of the Illinois Office of the Comptroller contacted Holland to see if the village wanted to take part in a program that would deduct local fines issued to Illinois residents from their state tax returns, the mayor said. Village officials would enter the names of people with outstanding fines into a state-run website, which would then take the money from state residents's refunds, minus a processing fee of up to $15.

Last week, the Chicago City Council approved this measure, which would help the city collect on about $80 million in unpaid parking tickets, red-light citations and other fines, according to the Chicago Tribune.

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But Holland said he has misgivings about the program.

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"It has a little Big Brother feeling to it," he said. "My initial reaction was I don't want to do this to the residents. If they owe us money, we should be able to go knock on their doors and say you owe us money."

The program also would allow the village to collect on fines from state residents who live outside Frankfort, individuals who are the least likely to pay those fines. That's something Village Trustee Cindy Heath said she saw as a benefit, along with the ability to collect from chronic violators or individuals who owed the village substantial amounts of money in fines.

But the arbitrary nature of that type of enforcement isn't something Holland said he was comfortable with.

"That's not right. We can't apply this to one class of people and not another," he said, adding that he's suspect of "anything that looks like it's trying to collect money in a sneaky way."

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Holland added that he wasn't too concerned about the money the village was leaving on the table when it comes to uncollected fines. Frankfort Police officers don't write many parking tickets, and of the $4,000 to $5,000 in drunken driving fines police issue annually, the village collects on more than half of those, said Chief John Burica.

"It's a minor amount of money for what could be a major amount of aggravation," Holland said. "The Village of Frankfort has never made money by fining people."

YOUR TURN: Is this a good decision by the village? Or should Frankfort become part of this program to earn extra income, especially in these tough economic times? Share your opinions in the comments section.


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