Any Evergreen Indiana library may collect monies owed to any other Evergreen Indiana library that have been billed within the Evergreen system. If you have any questions about bills owed to another library, please contact that library for any needed clarifications. Clearing accounts in collections or under order of reparations from small claims court may require direct intervention from the billing library or collections agency.
Evergreen Indiana observes the following rules for bill ownership, which determines which library receives the collected funds or has the right to forgive or waive the bills. Only the library which owns the bill may approve changes to the balance owed except to receive actual payment in the form of cash, check, or credit card.
- Overdue circulation fines are the property of the Checkout/Renew Library which serves the Patron directly. In other words, the library that actually checked the item out to the Patron. Circulation fines do not belong to the library that owns the material that is checked out.
- NOTE: Manually added billings to existing circulation fines remain the property of Checkout/Renew library, so do not manually add repair fees to a circulation bill unless the entire transaction is for a locally owned and circulated item.
- Lost or damaged bills, and all associated fines and fees for the transaction resulting in the loss or damage, are the property of the Circulation (aka Owning) Library.
- Grocery (aka manual) bills are the property of the library that enters the bill on the Patron’s account. Examples of grocery bills which may appear over time (rather than those that are paid on the spot) include repair, dropbox, and Hold fees. Be sure to enter these bills separately at the library due the funds.
Funds collected on bills owned remotely appear in the Evergreen Indiana Payment Program daily reconciliation reports. Please see the Local Administration Manual for more information on the Payment Program.