Jefferson-Madison Regional Library (JMRL) is doing away with overdue fees for most items.
The new policy begins July 1, and in addition to eliminating most late fees, the library will also remove outstanding fines from borrowers’ accounts. That means anyone whose library card has been frozen due to unpaid fines will be able to use their cards again. Currently, fines are 25 cents per day for most items with maximum fines ranging from $10 to $30 per item.
Overdue fees will remain in place for some high-demand items, though, like bestsellers, toys and kits, according to a “frequently asked questions” page about the upcoming change. Patrons will also still be responsible for replacing lost or damaged materials. If an item isn’t returned within a month of its due date, the borrower will receive a bill to replace it, but if the item is brought back, their account will be cleared.
The move to a (mostly) fine-free system is itself a little overdue, according to David Plunkett, director of the JMRL system.
“JMRL has been looking at this for a long time,” he said. That’s because for the past decade or so, it’s become standard practice for most libraries throughout the country.
Between 2017 and 2022, the percentage of U.S. public libraries charging patrons overdue fines dropped dramatically, from 92% to 36%, according to Library Journal, a trade publication for the library profession that conducts a fines and fees survey every few years.
During that time, the American Library Association (ALA), the largest library membership organization in the world, encouraged all libraries to get rid of overdue fines. In 2019, the organization adopted a resolution calling fines “a form of social inequity.” The resolution encouraged the removal of all barriers to library and information services, especially overdue charges.
The ALA’s resolution reflected a growing body of research showing that overdue fees keep people away from libraries and therefore the resources libraries offer their communities — something that defeats the purpose of a public library, Plunkett said.
This is especially true for families with lower incomes, according to a 2015 report from the Colorado State Library. CSL drew on its own patron surveys and focus groups, as well as case studies throughout the country from the 1980s onward when studying the issue.
Anecdotal stories from one of those focus groups with low-income parents and caregivers showed that “both fines for late items and fees for lost or damaged books make parents reluctant to check out books and to have their children enjoy library books at all.”
A few JMRL Central Branch patrons who spoke with Charlottesville Tomorrow this week were surprised to hear about the library becoming mostly fine-free.
“Wow!” said Sherida, who uses the library occasionally and asked to be identified by her first name only for privacy. “That’s a lot less stress if, down the road, you find a book you thought you’d brought back.”
Mike, who was carrying a tote bag full of about two dozen children’s books as he left the library Wednesday afternoon, was a little disappointed to hear the news — but only because he’d just paid $18 in overdue fines. Mike also asked to be identified by his first name only, for privacy reasons.
“I hope they’ll be able to fund themselves,” Mike said of JMRL’s choice to go fine-free. “But otherwise, I think it will be a good and equitable thing for families.”
Some library systems have relied on overdue fees to encourage borrowers to return items on time, NPR reported in November 2019, after the ALA adopted its resolution. But that doesn’t always work, nor is it always needed, including at JMRL.
About 90% of borrowed materials are returned to JMRL on time, Plunkett said, and he doesn’t think that will change much when the new policy goes into effect, though the library plans to track the data.
And on top of that, revenue from overdue fines has been shrinking for a while.
During the current 2026 fiscal year, JMRL will take in about $50,000 in overdue fines, Plunkett said. That’s about 0.5% of its $9.68 million budget for that year. The previous fiscal year, the system took in $78,000. A decade ago, the figure was around $150,000.
“The truth is that moving forward, this will not be as reliable a source of revenue for JMRL that it has been in the past,” Plunkett said.
The reason? Digital circulation. Currently, about 30% of all JMRL circulation is digital, and the digital collection does not accumulate overdue fines.
“The use of JMRL’s digital collection has grown steadily year over year, with no signs of slowing down,” Plunkett said. “The Library Board was always going to have to find a way to replace this funding,” late fees or not.
JMRL is looking at ways to replace that money in its operating budget, especially as federal funding for libraries has been on rocky territory recently. In March 2025, President Trump issued an executive order to effectively dismantle the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), an independent federal agency that provides grants to libraries and museums throughout the United States.
In November 2025, attorneys general in 21 states asked a judge in the federal District Court for the District of Rhode Island to issue an order stopping the federal government from dismantling the IMLS. A judge ruled in favor of the attorneys general and banned the Trump administration from taking any further steps to dismantle the IMLS. The judge ordered the re-hiring of all fired staff, as well as the reinstatement of all grants. The U.S. Department of Justice appealed the decision, but in April 2026 dropped its appeal.
Also in April, a few organizations who had sued the federal government over the attempted dismantling of the IMLS, including the ALA, reached a settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice to preserve the IMLS.
In the past, JMRL has received grants from the IMLS via the state library, the Library of Virginia.
For decades, JMRL put the money it collected from overdue fees toward buying equipment for its eight libraries and its bookmobile. Plunkett doesn’t plan to ask any of the localities that fund the library — the City of Charlottesville and the counties of Albemarle, Greene, Louisa and Nelson — to help absorb the cost.
He hopes that between state and federal grants and local philanthropy, it won’t be a challenge to make up the money lost in the shift to a fee-free system. For instance, a spring 2026 book sale run by the local nonprofit Friends of JMRL raised $187,641, the most in the organization’s history, for JMRL programs and projects.
Plus, JMRL has successfully managed changes to its overdue fine system before.
JRML stopped charging overdue fines for juvenile cards during its 2016 fiscal year. Ever since that change, kids have made up an increasingly higher percentage of borrowers checking out physical items.
During the year before the change, fiscal year 2015, 89% of physical items were checked out on adult cards and 11% on juvenile cards. Just one year after the change, it was 81% and 19%, respectively.
By fiscal year 2024, the scales tipped even more toward young borrowers, Plunkett said. That fiscal year, 63% of physical material checkouts were from adult cards and 37% from juvenile cards.
Last year, during fiscal year 2025, JMRL implemented an auto-renew program, which automatically renews a checked out item (as long as someone else doesn’t have it on hold), twice. Previously, if an item was renewed overdue, the borrower was charged a daily fine, Plunkett said.
“A whole category of fine revenue disappeared” after that program began, Plunkett said.
But tearing down those barriers to access might be contributing to more frequent use of JMRL’s resources, just as the studies have shown. Library patrons checked out more than 1.8 million items during fiscal year 2025, “the highest amount regionally in over 20 years,” according to JMRL’s fiscal year 2026 budget.
To Plunkett, eliminating most fines to get more people to the library is a worthy trade.
“I hope that we will increase card holdership and decrease the number of cards that are blocked, that cannot use the library right now,” Plunkett said.
“If overdue fines are keeping them from walking through the door, we want to remove that barrier,” he added. “That’s the whole point.”
