Overdue fines

Policy Statement:

CSU libraries should not charge overdue fines for resource sharing.

• An overdue notice will be emailed 3 days after the due date informing the patron that a replacement fee of $90 will be charged 14 days after the book was due.
• After 14 days the patron is billed and blocked from using library checkout (all circulation of local and non-local materials).
• If the item is returned, the replacement fee will be removed.
• Local campus can override the block for local material checkout if they choose to do so.
• Campuses are encouraged to work with the patron and the lending library to reduce the fee to the cost of the book.

Rationale:

• After the original policy was created the GTF discovered that Alma required a dollar amount configured for lost items. Working with the COLD Exec team the GTF decided to make the standard replacement cost $90. 
• In Early 2017 COLD and the GTF agreed that CSU+ items will not accrue fines. Automated emails are used to prompt patrons to return their items and accounts with extremely overdue items will be temporarily blocked until the item is returned, a replacement copy is provided, or the replacement fee is paid. Billing and refunds for materials found after paying the replacement fee should follow the same workflow and policies of billed in house materials.

Update:

The current policy regarding overdue fines reads “After 14 days the patron is billed and blocked from using library checkout.”We are running into some problems figuring out how to implement the blocking piece of this policy as written so we need a decision about which part of the policy to compromise.

The available options we have for blocking patrons from circ activity are as follows:

1. Mark the book as lost at 14 days and bill for the replacement cost of the book. At that point $90 fee (or the specified replacement cost of the item) would be billed to the patron’s record. In this scenario the block would be triggered by the patron exceeding the maximum amount of cash owed, as configured in the patron limits table.
   1. The problem with this method is that it counts on each campus having their maximum cash owed configured at or below $90 for CSU+ users. Some campuses (not sure how many) configure their cash limits to be much higher for faculty users. For campuses where this is the case some users would get blocked if they have an overdue CSU+ item while others would not.
      
2. Mark the book as overdue and block user circ activity after 14 days and mark the book as lost/billed at a later date. This method imposes a block using the overdue profile.
   1. The problem with this method is that the patron would be blocked but not billed at the 14 days overdue mark. Marking the book lost automatically bills for replacement cost but removes the block because Alma assumes your patron limits block (as outlined in scenario A) would come into play at that point and the block that’s in place via the overdue profile is no longer necessary.
   2. If we use this method we would need to bill the patron for the item at a later point. At this point the block will be removed and we will essentially be in the same situation as scenario A, with some patrons being blocked due to the money owed and others potentially not.

Action log: