Monticello Live

During a recent city council meeting, the Council voted unanimously to enter into a contract with MidSouth Adjustment Company out of Pine Bluff to get help in collecting unpaid water bills.

According to city clerk Andrea Chambers, there is currently an outstanding balance of $72,900 not paid in the water department that can be collected. She said, “We work daily at collecting debts… but, if they move out of state and we don’t know where they’ve moved to, it’s a debt that just goes into our records as uncollectable.”

MidSouth’s contract states that the company keeps 30% of fines collected as their profit, and they collect no money if they are unable to find a method in which to get the fines paid. There is a 60-day termination period and it is basically an “at will” contract for both parties.

“I don’t see what you could possibly have to lose.” “They’ve been there for a very long time and they have a very good reputation.” – Beverly Hudson

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City Council Considering Hiring Collection Agency for Old Water Bills
Sept. 7, 2011

Mid-South Adjustment Company Offers Services to City

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Nathan Sullivan and Robbie Traweek from Mid-South Adjustment Company in Pine Bluff addressed the council in hopes of a future partnership. Mid-South has been in business for 30 years, and would like to help the city in the matter of collecting city water and sanitation fines. It was reported that the number of unpaid fines for the city of Monticello is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars range.

Mid-South uses many avenues to find people with unpaid fines, and also reports the bad debts to negatively impact one’s credit score. The city currently does not report unpaid fines to credit.

Beverly Hudson stated, “I don’t see that we have anything to lose,” once it was presented that the company only gets payment from the city if they are able to collect on the unpaid fines, and the city has total control over which cases are sent to the company and which are handled within the city.

Further discussion will be held at the special meeting on September 6, 2011.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 20th, 2011 at 6:19 am and is filed under City. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.