State doing better job collecting debt
A new state debt collection office appears to be on the road to success, recovering 17 percent of the $528 million it has been asked to collect since 2014. The Office of Debt Recovery has received some $93 million in payments since it began its work.
The Associated Press said Kimberly Robinson, secretary of the state Department of Revenue, told the Cash Management Review Board collections have grown significantly. The board was created to track the work of the new office.
State Rep. Chris Broadwater, R-Hammond, author of the act creating the office, said the Legislature wants to know if there have been any problems. The goal is to try and determine whether the new office is doing a better job collecting debt than state agencies were doing before it was created.
Robinson said she hoped to have a better analysis within the year.
Both houses of the Legislature approved the legislation creating the office unanimously. It was estimated it could generate as much as $200 million over five years.
Broadwater at the time said the 2013 act setting up the office would aggressively pursue the collection of accounts or claims owed to the state through all reasonable means. He said the state was too lax in seeking payments.
U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., who was state treasurer in 2013, said simple changes in collection procedures could solve debt problems.
The Office of Debt Recovery can revoke or suspend licenses, seize bank accounts and take tax refunds in order to recapture what is owed the state.
Bank account seizures have reclaimed about $65 million and tax offsets another $28 million. Robinson said blocking renewals or purchases of hunting and fishing licenses tends to revoke a response from debtors.
State agencies are supposed to refer all their delinquent accounts to the state attorney general’s office or the debt recovery office for collections. The recovery office handles debts considered final with no further right of appeal.
Nearly 100 state agencies are turning their debts over to the new office. Most of the unpaid debt occurs in the health, public safety and corrections departments.
Broadwater was correct when he said the quicker debt is collected the more successful the process becomes.