Clerk asks for help

The Jay County Clerk’s office may be getting some help from a collection agency to help bring in payments on overdue.
Jay County Clerk Ellen Coats and attorney Lon Racster spoke with Jay County Commissioners about utilizing Capital Recovery Systems to help collect court fees and other costs due but not being paid to the county.
Coats informed the commissioners in May that often court costs are not paid since people would come in and apply payments to other areas like child support or probation fees and then not pay costs.
“The county or courts needs to create a policy,” that would state court costs need to be collected first before money could be applied to other funds, Coats said.
For fees that are not being collected, Racster said he could speak with the county judges to get authorization to utilize the collection agency.
Commissioner Milo Miller Jr. asked Racster to work on a draft resolution stating the policy change as well as authorizing collection.
“You need to make that up and present it to the judges,” he said.
Coats said once the changes are made, the new rules will be posted in her office.
Capital Recovery Systems would not charge the county for its services, instead applying a 30 percent fee to the collection bill.
The company would only collect its fee if it first collects 100 percent of what is owed to the county.
Coats said that the clerk in Vanderburgh County recommended the company, stating that it had already helped to collect about $300,000 in child support cases there.
Racster had a few questions about the contract with Capital Recovery Systems and asked Coats to get in touch with the company.
In other business this morning, the commissioners:
•Amended the minutes of a Jay County Drainage Board meeting from July 2010. Jay County surveyor Brad Daniels said that the Friends of the Limberlost wanted a copy of the minutes for their records, since the county decided to vacate a stretch of county drain and turn over responsibility to the group.
The commissioners amended those minutes to correct the location of the drain as well as insert language that the county turned over responsibility.
•Were informed by Daniels that the department truck damaged by a tornado in Bearcreek Township was returned after having bodywork repairs completed.
•Were informed by Daniels that all known logjams in the Salamonie River have been removed.
•Heard a presentation from Randy Smith and Jeff Dossett of 39 Degrees North, Bloomington, about Geographic Information System services provided by the company.[[In-content Ad]]