Sacramento Library has racked up US$4.6Mn unpaid fines (and counting) is this a world record ?

A Sacramento County grand jury in March was investigating the management of the library, They were told that US $2.5 million was due in unpaid fines.
A " revised assessment" comes in an agenda item released today in advance of the library board's monthly meeting, scheduled for next Thursday.

The report says library officials told the grand jury that there was a total of $2.7 million in unpaid fines and materials that had not been returned, but that "upon performing data review and error checking, a large error reflecting a negative amount owed of -$1.6 million was corrected...

"The analysis indicated that the corrected amount total owed by customers was $4.3 million," and additional checking shows the actual amount is now $4.6 million, the report says. They had (in April) 114,000 overdue users see report online.

The grand jury's report criticized library management for credit card abuses, questionable travel expenses and excessive use of consultants, in addition to what it reported at the time was $2.5 million in unpaid fines.

Library director Anne Marie Gold, (at US$145,000 per annum since 2002 ) was accusing of ignoring library employees who tried to warn officials about an alleged billing and kickback scheme. the grand Jury said she "failed to adequately safeguard public funds, and advised the library board that oversees library operations to "seriously consider removing" her from her position. (see biog.)

Facts about Librarians : It was a librarian who married George Bush, Philip Larkin was a librarian , Philip Larkin's dad admired Germany , attended 2 Nuremberg rallies and had a statue of Hitler on his mantlepiece ... George Bush's grandad read books as well.

Plans are already afoot for a George Bush Memorial Library - they can't have his books yet , he still has some left to colour in.