2010-11-03 Cost of Government Commission Minutes

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MS. WONG: Just to end my question, are any of the companies that made that presentation, I think it was four, and I think you were there last week, would any of those programs help what your division is doing? MR. SITKO: I actually was impressed with some of them. We can actually probably piggy back some of our functions. I was looking at this latest one which I believe is excella. I appreciated their ability to handle stuff online and to take applications. That would be probably the major extent of my interest is to be able to put information out for the public so that they can come back in via the web instead of having to come in to our offices. MS. WONG: So would that be a cost saving to your division predicament? MR. SITKO: I don’t think so. It would be better service. I don’t think it would cost us extra, but it would be a better service to the public. MS. O’HARA: Would it help to compensate for some of the unfunded positions that you’re currently dealing with? MR. SITKO: No. MS. NICHOLSON: Okay. Next person who would like to speak. MS. SAKO: I can summarize Finance real quick. Both Stan and Mike, we’re all part of Finance. So we do have the largest revenue source. Mike’s job is more just facilitating, getting the money to the bank. All the other revenue sources that you see in the monthly report in the CAPHR are all handled by other departments. So we just help facilitate that as well as we do every other month we meet like this collection committee to try to see if there are ways that we can enhance our collection effort and the areas and revenue sources. Of which Molly is one of the members. MS. NICHOLSON: So maybe Molly, we should just move right into you. MS. LUGO: Sure. What I do is pretty straight forward. When the various county departments have exhausted their efforts to collect on a bill, they’ll refer it to my office. I’ll try to make contact with the party. Usually we negotiate some sort of payment plan and if they aren’t responsive to that, then my next step would be to file a complaint in court, and hopefully obtain a judgement. I can give you some numbers. In 2008, we collected about $2.7 million. In 2009, about $1.6. And this year, around $200,000. The reason for that 2008 and 2009 was so large had primarily to do with one particular solid waste hauler who was about $3 million delinquent. So they paid in really large chunks. The decrease isn’t a reflection of decreased efforts, but just having to do with that one hauler. Most of my collection cases are for unpaid solid waste tipping fees with about 40 open cases. I have five unpaid water bills, four wastewater accounts, two property damage cases and six miscellaneous. The usual method for collecting is through a payment plan. And for example, last fiscal year, out of 200, and 2000 collected. $31,000 of that was in judgements. So we try to avoid going to court if possible. I try to work with the debtors because understanding their situation, if we can 14