OU Parking and Transportation Services issues about 50,000 parking citations every year. An examination of records acquired by The Daily in the fall shows that, at the point at which the records were made, there were more than 27,900 parking tickets with unsettled debt.
The records covered the time period between the fall of 2009 and November of last year. Of the more than 247,000 citations given during this time frame, over 10 percent of them still had remaining balances, according to the records.
The problem lies in enforcement. If a student owes $100 or more, the student will not be able to register for classes for the next semester, said Vicky Holland, a marketing and public relations specialist for OU Parking and Transportations Services.
If students owe $25 or more from a previous semester, they cannot receive a copy of their transcript, Holland said.
There are over 27,700 citations with an amount due less than $100, according to the records.
“I know we don’t have enough parking,” Holland said, adding that, in her opinion, not enough students utilize parking at Lloyd Noble Center and riding buses to the main campus.
Prior to the start of the fall 2014 semester, there was $533,608.85 in unpaid parking citations. Then, prior to March 31, 2014, when registration for the fall semester began, there was $477, 078.56 in unpaid parking citations.
As of November 14, 2014, $753,169.11 was owed in outstanding charges for parking citations during this timeframe.
Jessica Caldwell, a human relations sophomore, had a parking citation voided on appeal last semester. Had her ticket not been voided, Caldwell says she would have not paid it that semester, allowing her scholarship money for next semester to help her pay off the citation.
There are also students with a negative balance with OU Parking and Transit. This can occur when students accidentally pay a citation twice or pay a fine only to have it voided later, Holland said.
These students are issued a refund, Holland said.
These negative balances were not included in the amounts for unpaid parking citations listed above.
For businesses with unpaid citations, there is even less recourse for collecting the amount owed.
For example, a demolition company owes $255 for a citation given in August 2009, according to the records.
It is the company’s responsibility to pay the citation, Holland said. OU transportation will sometimes send a letter to remind the company of the money they owe, but it will not make collection calls, Holland said.
Nylece Putnam of SOS Waste Disposal, another company with a longstanding unpaid citation, according to the records, said the company would have paid the citation if it had received notification.
“I didn’t know anything about it,” Putnam said.
