[Michlib-l] Patron Payoff-

[Meaghan Battle]

I agree with Kevin.  In addition, bartering volunteer hours for fines is also a slippery slope that other patrons will expect to be able to do as well.  And that is one step shy of accepting payment in the form of goods, like quilts or livestock. (Just stretching the thought out to its illogical conclusion, which is something patrons may do too.)

Best of luck resolving your issue! :-)

--Meaghan

-----Original Message-----
From: michlib-l-bounces at mcls.org [mailto:michlib-l-bounces at mcls.org] On Behalf Of Kevin King
Sent: Friday, September 02, 2016 2:24 PM
To: Miriam Andrus <mandrus at bigrapids.lib.mi.us>; Michlib-L (michlib-l at mcls.org) <michlib-l at mcls.org>
Subject: Re: [Michlib-l] Patron Payoff-

Just waive the fine. The time and effort going into the training to let her work it off probably costs more.

Kevin King
Kalamazoo Public Library

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On Fri, Sep 2, 2016 at 2:02 PM -0400, "Miriam Andrus" <mandrus at bigrapids.lib.mi.us<mailto:mandrus at bigrapids.lib.mi.us>> wrote:

We have an interesting predicament at the Big Rapids Community Library. We have a patron who moved and lost 3 audiobooks. We have charged her for the lost items and eventually she was sent to collections. She contacted the library and being unemployed, she has asked if she can work off the fine. She just graduated from college and is job hunting, hence she has no money to pay the fine. I approached my board with her request and they asked me to poll the group of libraries to see what your thoughts are and if anyone has ever dealt with this kind of a situation.
      I see that we have two choices.
      Either she doesn't and can't pay the fine so it sits on her account perpetually (which really does us no good or her for that matter)
      We let her volunteer to pay off her fine (this opens the flood gates for other people to do the same thing, also not good for us)

We could of course waive the fine but that also opens a flood gate. Also, I should mention she moved out of our service area and still wants to settle her account.

So we are stuck. Any wisdom from the group would be appreciated.
Thank you,

-Miriam Andrus, Director
Big Rapids Community Library


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