9 & 10 News February 23, 2021 Throughout the pandemic people have been traveling less, and it’s resulted in less penal fines in Michigan. With less travel comes less traffic tickets, and that means less money for Michigan libraries. Michigan is the only state in the country who’s constitution guarantees money from penal fines be given to libraries. For some, that could mean thousands of dollars. “We took a big hit last year,” said Petoskey District Library, Val Meyerson. “For example, in 2019 we took in close to $80,000 in penal fine revenue. 2020 however, it was closer to $70,000. It was about $66,000. So we took about a 17 percent reduction in our penal fine revenue.”