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Q&A
Discussion on Law Department's collection efforts and unpaid fines
3:10:05
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71 sec
Council Member Brewer inquires about the Law Department's collection efforts and the potential for expanding their collection unit to address unpaid fines and fees. The Corporation Counsel explains the current system of using external firms for collections based on productivity.
- The Law Department uses three or four firms for collections, paid based on their productivity.
- There's a significant amount of unpaid fines and fees, estimated at about $2.1 billion a few years ago.
- The department is open to bringing on another firm if it would be financially beneficial.
Gale A. Brewer
3:10:05
You mentioned I think when you were speaking that you hire firms to do collections and you collected quite a bit.
3:10:11
So why wouldn't you expand that unit, because there are so many unpaid fines and fees?
3:10:17
The reason why I'm interested in this, I'm always contacting IBO to get the list of unpaid fines and fees and it's always pretty high.
3:10:26
Much of it, of course, is finance, but you do your own.
3:10:29
So I just was wondering why you wouldn't hire more to do more collection.
Muriel Goode-Trufant
3:10:35
The There are three or four firms and they basically get paid based on how productive they are.
3:10:45
And the work comes out of Department of Finance and other agencies for whom we collect unpaid debt.
3:10:57
If we get to the point that bringing on another firm would be of a financial benefit
Gale A. Brewer
3:11:05
A cost benefit.
Muriel Goode-Trufant
3:11:06
Yeah.
3:11:06
To a firm, we certainly will do that.
Gale A. Brewer
3:11:08
Okay.
3:11:08
Because it does seem to me that last time I checked, it was about three two, three years ago, it was, like, $2,100,000,000 total.
3:11:15
It's a lot of money.