By Victoria Stone-Meadows
Casey residents owe more than $137 million in fines.
The City of Casey has topped the list of areas with most outstanding warrants for the second year in a row, according to the Victorian Sheriff’s Office.
For the financial year ending 30 June 2016, residents across Casey amassed a whopping $137,127,232 worth of unpaid fines and outstanding warrants.
With 370,773 warrants issued to 31,217 offenders, the Casey council area also took out the top spot for the value of warrant per person with each one owning an average of $4393.
Neighbouring municipality of Greater Dandenong made the top 10 list with $77,165,301 owing from 25,304 people.
The figures realised by the Sheriff’s Office take into account all outstanding warrants including civil, criminal and corporate.
The data relates to infringements managed by the Department of Justice and Regulation and includes infringements issued by Victoria Police, other Government agencies, including VicRoads, and the Taxi Services Commission.
It does not include infringements managed by other enforcement agencies, such as local councils and Public Transport Victoria.
While overall numbers of warrants issued are down across the state by 4.6 per cent, long-term unpaid fines saw a 7 per cent increase in the number of warrants issued to recover outstanding debts.
Sheriff of Victoria Brendan Facey said despite the best efforts of police and sheriffs, some people still need to be chased down to repay missing money.
“Unfortunately, some people are still not getting the message that you cannot ignore your unpaid fines,” he said.
“We don’t want to see people’s matters escalating through the system, we want people to speak to us about their options before they are caught by sheriff’s officers.”
Mr Facey said ignoring unpaid fines can lead to much more trouble down the track than organising a way to deal with the debt before they increase.
“Fines can quickly escalate after infringements are issued,” he said.
“For example, you may be issued with a red-light infringement in January with a penalty of $389. By June, if you ignored your fine, the total penalty could be $576.60,” he said.
July last year saw the introduction of a new the Department of Justice and Regulation call centre that contacts people and helps them to get on top of their fines early.
Since its inception, the call centre has contacted more than 31,500 people and recovered $16.2 million in unpaid fines.
It has also helped to arrange payment plans for almost 18,571 matters valued at more than $3.6 million.
