City turns to collection agency after state bans towing vehicles for unpaid tickets

The owners of 9,000 vehicles owe the city of Rochester hundreds of thousands of dollars for delinquent, unpaid parking tickets. When all else fails, one of the tried and true methods available to authorities for collecting from serial violators has been to tow vehicles to an impound lot, where the owner has to pay up in order to reclaim the car or truck.

But not anymore. As MinnPost points out, the 2024 DFL-controlled legislature banned that age-old solution as part of the transportation bill, so as not to inconvenience those who decline to pay up.

Minnesota lawmakers are hoping a provision signed into law last week that eliminates towing vehicles with several unpaid parking tickets as a means for debt-collection will help unburden lower-income vehicle owners across the state. 

Under previous state law, towing authorities could only tow vehicles from expired parking meters if the vehicle had five or more unpaid parking tickets. The bill, authored by DFL Rep. Erin Koegel of Spring Lake Park, prohibits towing those vehicles as a method to collect that debt, building on legislation passed last year that prohibits debt-based driver’s license suspensions. 

As a result, local authorities in Rochester have resorted to another venerable and vilified enforcement option that has not yet been prohibited by their overseers in St. Paul–a collection agency.

Drivers who continue to ignore Rochester parking tickets as far back as 2018 are likely to start getting phone calls next year.

Working with its parking system management vendor, IPS Group, Inc., the city is moving forward with collection services to recover nearly $870,000 in unpaid parking fines from past years.

The move comes after state law was amended this year to prevent cars from being towed due to unpaid parking tickets.

Even as state legislators wound up the session back in May, city staff began gearing up to engage a collection agency to remind folks with unpaid parking tickets of their civic obligation. But they built in a grace period for violators to pay their outstanding tickets before being hounded by the collection agency.

All citations issued after July 11, 2024, have included a notice about being sent to collections after 45 days of delinquency, but older tickets didn’t include the same notice.

In the coming days, notices will be mailed to registered owners of vehicles with unpaid parking tickets notifying them that their unpaid parking tickets will be sent to collections.

Recipients will be given until Jan. 1, 2025, to pay the ticket and any associated fines to avoid being sent to collections.

Outstanding tickets still on the books from before 2018 will be dismissed. The majority of violations were handed out since 2021.