The city of New York is on a hunt for the thousands of delinquents who ignored to pay their parking tickets. The total amount of parking fees owed to the local government amounts up to US$700 million, according to the Department of Finance. New York City Finance Commissioner David M. Frankel says that their office has not been aggressive enough in going after the delinquents, and neither has it shown enough resilience in facing them. Likewise, the country’s Department of Finance has fallen short of being strict in hunting down violators. However, with the city facing ever increasing budget cuts, the department says they finally have enough reason to do so.

The old tradition was waiting until unpaid fines reached US$800 before calling in collection agencies to do the hunting. Now, the Finance department will track down any and all amounts owed to the city government. The local daily, The New York Times, recently reported that the finance department has called upon collection agencies to handle outstanding fines amounting up to US$209 million. That amount has been summed up from around 1.4 million neglected parking tickets. What used to be a slow day for collection agencies has now turned into a full blown operation to recover owed parking fees for the city of New York.

In recent past, unpaid tickets amounting to US$250 or higher carried a penalty of restricting the driver from being able to apply for vehicle registration renewal. Now, the city will automatically suspend the registration of any vehicle whose owner has reached the limit of five parking fee violations over a time period of one year.