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Effort targets sewer debtors
Struthers hopes to collect $300K
By jeanne starmack
struthers
The city is going to try to collect about $300,000 in sewer-bill delinquencies.
The city is working with Aqua Ohio, which is its billing agent, to collect the debt, said Mayor Terry Stocker. He said the water company’s legal department is looking into whether water can be shut off at delinquent properties.
The city also is consulting with its law director on whether it can publish a list of property owners who are delinquent in an effort to shame them into paying their bills, Stocker said.
The large debt amassed over the years, explained city Auditor Tina Morell.
She said that when she took office in 2004, uncollected sewer bills totaled $763,441.
She said that $629,577 was over a year old. Parts of the debt were collectible, she said, and parts weren’t. Delinquencies more than six years old can’t be collected, she said.
Morell said that the city auditor’s office is not responsible for collecting delinquencies, but she worked toward doing so anyway.
She said an ordinance that she requested over the years that makes landlords responsible for tenants’ delinquencies kept being sent back into council committees. She said council always wanted more information, which she would provide. But the ordinance never went anywhere.
“The majority of our problems are landlord-tenant situations,” she said.
Under a new city administration, the ordinance finally passed in 2008, she said.
“Since then, our efforts have been strengthened to do these collections,” she said. A firm the city uses to collect the delinquencies indicated it is having an easier time now, she said.
She said collections are up $40,000 over this time last year.
She said $271,000 of uncollectible debt is being written off the books.
She said the debt is uncollectible because debtors have died or filed bankruptcy.
“We needed to get the charge-off because we needed a clear picture of what is collectible,” she said.