A 34-year-old single mother was tossed in jail for 27 hours last month for failing to appear in court for an unpaid North Texas Tollway Authority bill.

Carole Denise Butler of McKinney estimates the 5-year-old bill at $11.

She told The Watchdog that she was never notified of any unpaid bills or court appearances, though, she says, her address is correctly listed with the state and the NTTA, where she keeps a current TollTag account.

She remembered hearing about one notice that went to her now-deceased grandfather in Austin in 2006. But she never saw it, and she bought a car from him in 2003 and properly changed her address, she says.

It’s not an isolated incident. “There’ve been a few” motorists tossed into his county’s jail for charges that began as unpaid toll fines, a spokesman for the Collin County Sheriff’s Department tells The Watchdog.

The Watchdog has written about how tolls costing a few dollars can escalate into $500 fines with penalties and fees. Some motorists say they never received bills or warning letters. The threat of arrest was always imminent, but this is the first case I could find of an arrest taking place.

The NTTA has acknowledged that it has had problems with obtaining accurate addresses. Officials said last year that they had improved their use of databases to get more-accurate information.

The Watchdog contacted Victor Vandergriff, new chairman of the authority board and the first from Tarrant County, to ask about Butler. “This is news and a little bit of a surprise … and a little disturbing,” he said.

“I would be concerned about anybody who has spent 27 hours in detention. I recognize that oftentimes when the tolls aren’t paid that there may be misinformation. It may be a bad address.”

Vandergriff, who has promised to reform the toll-collection system, said: “I want to address that. I certainly didn’t expect us to be doing that.”

Victor Vandergriff promises to fix the system

NTTA spokeswoman Susan Slupecki says records show that Butler was sent three notices in 2005 and that the mail was never returned to sender. Another notice was sent to a different address supplied by the Transportation Department, and it wasn’t returned either.

The Department of Public Safety issued a citation in 2006, and a court notice was issued after that. Butler says she never knew.

The NTTA says it does not track how many motorists are jailed for failing to appear in court, which is the technical cause for an arrest warrant. “We do not have access to county databases,” Slupecki says.

The DPS sent justice of the peace courts 5,295 NTTA citations last year and has sent 6,649 this year.

For the past year, I’ve recommended that NTTA complaints go to Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, who has vowed to tame the authority during the 2011 legislative session.

“Jailing someone for unpaid tolls — especially if the NTTA doesn’t know whether they received the invoices — is too harsh,” Nelson said last week of Butler’s case. “I am looking into changes that may be needed in how toll road agencies assess penalties.”

Sen. Jane Nelson: Write to her if you have a problem with the NTTA

Butler was arrested early Sept. 4. She had left an Allen bar with a female co-worker. The co-worker collapsed in the parking lot. Police arrived and asked Butler to drive the woman home. Butler agreed.

But an Allen police officer checking the validity of Butler’s driver’s license before she went found an outstanding misdemeanor warrant. She arrested Butler and arrested the co-worker on suspicion of public intoxication.

Butler spent 12 hours at the Allen Jail. She said she could not make phone calls because the phones allow only collect calls, and her emergency contacts use only cellphones that don’t accept those calls. She said she never learned why she was arrested.

Then Butler, an insurance processor, was transferred to the Collin County Detention Center in McKinney, where she spent 15 hours.

“They lock you up and treat you like an animal,” she said. “If they would have sent me a notice saying I had a citation, I would have paid it,” said Butler, daughter of a retired state trooper.

The DPS provides the NTTA with information on citations and warrants. In this case, the Collin County Sheriff’s Department held the warrant. A spokesman for Allen police says officers usually don’t know what the violation is when they arrest someone on a misdemeanor warrant.

Butler eventually settled with the NTTA. Her total bill started at $469 with penalties and fees. Collin County Justice of the Peace Mike Yarbrough cut that down to $242 with credit for time served in jail. She also paid the authority $112 in fees, including the original $11 toll bill for a car she sold three years ago.

When I contacted the NTTA about Butler, I received a written report with information about “Ms. Baker.”

Since the problem here is about accurate addresses, names seem a problem, too. I’m just sayin’.

# # #

Read the NTTA’s response to the above report here.

Read the previous Watchdog Nation report called “Here’s how to take back some of the authority from the North Texas Tollway Authority.”

Read the previous Watchdog Nation reported called “Watchdog Nation says: Give ’em hell, Victor.”

# # #

Send your stories and comments about the North Texas Tollway Authority to Jane.Nelson@senate.state.tx.us or by mail to Sen. Jane Nelson, P.O. Box 12068, Austin, TX 78711.

NTTA urges customers to update address, vehicle and payment information with them. 972-818-NTTA (6882) or visit ntta.org.

Keep the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles informed of address changes, too. To learn about that, visit http://bit.ly/DMVCHANGE

# # #

Dave Lieber, The Watchdog columnist for The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, is the founder of Watchdog Nation. The new 2010 edition of his book, Dave Lieber’s Watchdog Nation: Bite Back When Businesses and Scammers Do You Wrong, is out. Revised and expanded, the book won two national book awards in 2009 for social change. Twitter @DaveLieber

As the North Texas Tollway Authority creeps more and more into our lives, drivers continue to have fits over steep fees levied when toll bills aren’t paid on time.

Apparently, the NTTA takes the word authority in its title quite seriously. It continues to charge customers who missed a few dollars in toll payments many hundreds of dollars in fines and fees. Some motorists say they never received the original bills.

State Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, says she has seen enough of what she calls “exorbitant” penalties. She says the $11 million in penalties collected from drivers since last year is the authority’s way of making up for lost revenue.

Watchdog Nation alert: Senator Nelson needs ammunition to take on the authority. Send ideas, stories and comments to Jane.Nelson@senate.state.tx.us or Senator Jane Nelson, P.O. Box 12068, Austin, TX 78711.

“It’s gotten out of hand,” Nelson says. “What really bothers me is this is not supposed to be a revenue source for the NTTA. A fine should be a reminder that you need to pay for the tolls. But $11 million? That’s a lot of fines.”

The authority says it also spent $35 million in staff salaries and postage to administer its billing system.

Nelson plans to hit the problem head-on in the Legislature: “The way we set it up, I’m not sure we didn’t give them too much authority. We need to go back and consider more oversight.”

More authority over the authority. That comes as welcome news to drivers who say they’ve been burned.

As Dave Lieber first reported in the Oct. 11 column in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, for those who don’t travel east of Tarrant County very often, drivers who use toll roads in Dallas, Denton and Collin counties are encouraged to buy TollTags to hang on their windshield. Tags are read electronically, and the driver’s account is debited.

For those without a tag, the authority photographs their license plate and then mails a bill at a higher rate to the car’s registered owner. The authority is phasing out toll booths where cash is accepted and building roads with few booths.

If a toll-road scofflaw goes too long without paying, the case is referred to a justice of the peace (5,295 cases this year). In the end, an unpaid 45-cent toll can cost hundreds of dollars with added court costs.

Geoff Hartford of Denton says a $3.17 toll charge cost him $139 in payments to a collection agency. He was charged with five late payment violations at $25 each.

“They sent the invoice to my old address in Argyle,” he says.

The NTTA says that the invoices are sent to the listed address in government records and that the vehicle’s owner is responsible for updating the registration.

Charles Evans says he received a bill for $518 for about $18 in tolls. Two employees told him that if he didn’t pay the bill, he could be arrested, he said. Then the NTTA agreed to settle for $187. But when he went to the NTTA’s Web site to buy a TollTag, he found that if he bought a tag he could pay the $18 and clear his account.

“Their whole billing, fee and collection processes almost seem illegal to me,” he says.

The authority changed its policy on negotiated settlements, but its computer system still asks customers to sign up for the old violation enforcement agreement. The NTTA says it is “currently working to correct” the problem.

Robert J. Tilka of Keller has complained to Nelson. He says the authority offered to cut his bill from $518 to $150.

“It’s like organized crime,” Tilka says “It is a total money grab on the citizens of Texas, in my mind. Is there not a way to get people fired from the board? What is the best way to dispute this government agency?”

The NTTA declined to comment on Tilka’s remarks except to say public comment is always welcome.

The NTTA says its board “accepts comments from the public at all posted meetings.” (Visit www.ntta.org to learn more.)

In September, tolls on the Dallas North Tollway and President George Bush Turnpike were raised 32 percent. The authority is trying to meet financial commitments, unify its system and respond to economic conditions, spokeswoman Sherita Coffelt says.

Last year, the authority oversaw the sale of $5 billion in bonds for refinancing debt and funding construction. This year the authority issued $1.2 billion in bonds.

The authority says it intends to revisit its fees and penalty policies at a meeting in November.

Former Fort Worth Mayor Ken Barr, who was appointed to the NTTA board last year, said he’s aware that the system has problems and is confident that the board will address them in the next few weeks.

“I think we need to take a very hard look at the authority’s procedures,” he said, adding that it’s important to collect all tolls.

“It is very frustrating to try to collect from everyone and have a lot of people who would appear to purposely avoid paying,” he said. “We’ve got an obligation to regular users to collect from everybody. But that’s extremely difficult to do.”

NTTA Executive Director Allen Clemson says on the authority’s Web site: “The NTTA realizes that mistakes happen, confusion occurs or invoices are overlooked. That’s why we will waive 67 percent of administrative fees incurred if any violator takes care of the balance before the outstanding invoice is transferred to the collection agency.

“The purpose of administrative fees is to help pay for the cost of collection. They are not considered an additional revenue stream.”

But Nelson disagrees. She says that when she has questioned the NTTA, “they’ve been very defensive.”

UPDATES: After this appeared, the authority has asked for a meeting with Sen. Nelson… Thanks also to Reese Dunklin, intrepid investigator for competition-across-town Dallas Morning News for his help in this movement with this much-appreciated post at at DMN Investigates Blog.

Watchdog Nation alert: Senator Nelson needs ammunition to take on the authority. Send ideas, stories and comments to Jane.Nelson@senate.state.tx.us or Senator Jane Nelson, P.O. Box 12068, Austin, TX 78711.

About the NTTA The North Texas Tollway Authority is authorized to acquire, construct, maintain, repair and operate turnpike projects in North Texas.

The governing board’s members are Chairman Paul N. Wageman, Vice Chairman Victor Vandergriff and directors Kenneth Barr, Gary Base, Bob Day, David Denison, Michael Nowels, Bob Shepard and Alan E. Sims.

NTTA customer service: 972-818-NTTA (6882); www.ntta.org

Source: NTTA

This is the FLOW CHART from NTTA showing the path of a fine.

Send your comments to State Sen. Jane Nelson at jane.nelson@senate.tx.state.us.