While apartment hunting in Detroit this spring, Laura Tropea pulled her credit report to see how a prospective landlord might view her as a tenant.

The 28-year-old civil rights lawyer expected to see some late credit card payments from her undergraduate days at the University of Michigan. But she was amazed to discover on her credit report she owed about $168 to the Ann Arbor public library for books checked out years ago.

"I haven’t lived in Ann Arbor for five years. It’s bizarre to me," said Tropea. She now wonders if the library fine had anything to do with a recent rejection of a credit-card application.

More consumers may be in for a similar surprise. With tight budgets and limited staffs, libraries and municipalities have been turning to collection agencies to recover fines from book penalties and parking tickets to trash bills and ambulance fees, industry experts said. And once a collection agency is brought in, there’s a greater chance these unpaid bills will wind up on a credit report.

That can cause consumers to be denied credit, experts said. Information on reports also is used to create a credit score, a number that predicts the likelihood of a consumer paying bills on time. Lenders use the score not only to decide whether to extend credit but at what interest rate.

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"We are seeing clients that are a bit surprised that the library fine, the parking ticket and the fees for the dump are showing up on the credit report," said Cate Williams, with credit counselor Money Management International in Chicago.

A collection agency definitely gets people’s attention, even those who find it easy to ignore a gentle reminder from a librarian.

Alesha Verdict, circulation supervisor for the Charlotte Hall Library in St. Mary’s County, Md., recalls that two families couldn’t qualify for a mortgage because of overdue materials, although other negatives on their credit report might have played a role, too. Both families cleared up the problem by paying their bills. Another time, an 18-year-old found that she needed to pay about $54 in fines before obtaining a car loan, Verdict said.

Charlotte Hall library has received a handful of complaints since hiring a collection agency several years ago, but felt it had little choice, Verdict said.

"We were losing so many materials," she said. "We didn’t have any way to get our materials back. This was like the only option that we had."

Though sympathetic to the plight of libraries and municipalities, some say reporting seemingly minor violations to credit bureaus is a serious step, considering how credit reports are encroaching more into financial and work lives.

"I’m just surprised they report it," said Joanne Kerstetter, president of the Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Greater Washington. What if the library or the parking department is in error? she asked. Or, what if someone moved and never received notice of a fine? Now these items may affect whether someone gets credit, life insurance or even security clearance for a job, Kerstetter said.

"Without a doubt, over the last five years, there is a dramatic increase by municipalities to use third-party agencies," said Lou Valerio, chief executive of Progressive Financial Services, an Arizona collection agency.

Unique Management Services in Indiana collects fines for more than 700 libraries in the United States and Canada, up from 250 libraries seven years ago, said Kenes Bowling, manager of customer development.

The decision to report unpaid fines to a credit bureau is up to the municipality or group that hires the debt collector.

Municipalities used to be reluctant to have fines reported out of concern of angering voters, Valerio said. "I’m seeing more and more saying to report it," he said. On top of that, the cost of collection is often added to the debtor’s tab.

Among major credit bureaus, Experian and TransUnion will post information from collection agencies on reports. Equifax tries to weed out library fines and parking tickets because they are inconsistently reported across the country, said spokesman David Rubinger. Also, lenders don’t believe they indicate a consumer’s creditworthiness, he said.

Other credit experts say the impact of unpaid library fines or parking tickets will depend on the lender or what else is on an individual’s credit report.

Unpaid fines reported by a debt collector, though, will knock points off a credit score, where a higher number is better.

"From a credit score point of view, it doesn’t matter so much the size of the debt, but that it’s recent and happened in the last 11 months," said Evan Hendricks, author of Credit Scores & Credit Reports. A library fine recently posted on a report could trim 30 to 90 points off a credit score, he said.

Distributed by the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service