COEUR d'ALENE — It's quite possibly the worst-kept secret in Coeur d'Alene — the city has not been collecting unpaid parking ticket fines.

But that could change if the City Council approves a contract Tuesday with a collection agency to recoup some $350,000 in unpaid fines.

"This is a paradigm shift for the city," said Sam Taylor, deputy city administrator. "We are going to start enforcing our rules and our tickets because we need to make sure the playing field is equal for everybody who wants a parking space. When there are people who refuse to follow the rules and take up parking from other people, it impacts everyone else who is willing to follow the rules."

The estimated $350,000, according to Taylor, represents more than 30,000 parking tickets that have gone unpaid over the course of the last three and a half years, a period Taylor said was chosen because it falls within the four-year statute of limitations for collection of such fines. A preliminary contract has been drawn up with Chapman Financial Services, which is already contracted to collect funds from police department action.

Taylor said municipalities such as Coeur d'Alene don’t have the staffing to collect on these fines when people decide not to pay the initial collection effot, in this case Diamond Parking. In fact, Taylor said, searching the Idaho Transportation Department's Division of Motor Vehicle's registration in an effort to determine the owner of a ticketed vehicle can only be done one license plate at a time.

"With more than 30,000 tickets, it would take a staff member approximately 2.5 months to identify all of these people, working non-stop eight hours per day," Taylor added. "It's extremely common for a local government to work with a company to seek to collect fines from folks that don't pay them."

Since the Idaho DMV only has records of Idaho drivers, Taylor said the initial effort will focus on citations issued to Idahoans, which make up more than 24,000 of total unpaid tickets.

Individuals with unpaid parking tickets will not have their fines immediately sent to collections, Taylor said. The city will first send letters encouraging violators to pay the fine within 30 days of receipt.

Assuming the council approves, if violators still don’t pay their fine, the matter will be sent to Chapman for collection. According to the proposed contract, Chapman would add 33 percent to any fines it attempts to collect.

In a report to city officials, Taylor wrote that the collection agency often charges 10 to 60 percent of owed funds when it embarks on such projects, and estimated a 25 percent return should it be granted the contract with Coeur d'Alene. Based on the 25 percent figure, Taylor wrote the city can expect to receive approximately $87,500.

"There's some people that are just not going to pay," Taylor said. "They're going to be willing to take a hit on their credit, because that's what will happen eventually if they continue to not pay."

The timing of presenting the contract, Taylor added, is primarily based on the lack of a city employee being tasked with handling parking issues in the city prior to Taylor’s arrival in June. It’s part of a much larger push to refine and solidify how the city handles parking and parking enforcement, he said.

"Parking in the city of Coeur d'Alene is a finite resource. We only have so much of it that's public," Taylor said. "It's important that people are aware of the rules we have in place. We would like people to follow them and when they don't follow them, we will enforce the rules through tickets."