Island Lake due revenue from 21 years of parking violations

A representative from an Ohio collection agency did his best Thursday night to sell the Island Lake village board on his firm’s ability to collect on long-overdue parking tickets.

Whether trustees will approve a deal with TekCollect won’t be known until a future meeting, however.

TekCollect senior account executive Dave Service guaranteed the village would recoup 400 percent of the $2,500 in fees the town would pay his company if it’s hired. That amounts to $10,000 in overdue revenue from tickets dating back to 1990.

Trustees have debated the merits of hiring TekCollect at several recent meetings. Service was asked to speak to the board about the proposal after a few trustees raised questions about how the company performs its business and how it gets paid.

If the village hires TekCollect, it will pay the firm $1,250 upfront and an additional $1,250 after money begins rolling in. The firm would handle 250 tickets at a time.

TekCollect will call ticketed motorists and write letters on the village’s behalf. It will assess a $10 fee to each ticket in addition to the fine charged when the ticket was written.

That extra $10 will be paid by the driver, not the village.

Last month, Police Chief William McCorkle announced he’d discovered more than 3,173 unpaid tickets. The money owed totaled more than $200,000, officials said.

The village already contracts with a collection agency to pursue unpaid tickets, but the firm hasn’t been doing its job, Finance Director John Little has said.

Service said the company, if hired, will get at least 50 percent of the money owed to the village over 2½ months of work.

If TekCollect needs to get lawyers involved in collections or pursue asset searches, those steps won’t cost the village anything extra, Service said.

The board made no decisions on the matter Thursday.