By Keith Strange
The Mount Airy News, N.C.
DOBSON, N.C. — While officials note they are still trying to get the kinks worked out regarding the process, they say efforts to aggressively go after money owed the county’s emergency medical services (EMS) department is beginning to pay dividends.
Earlier this year, the Surry Board of Commissioners unanimously approved giving county tax collector Michael Hartgrove the authority to collect on behalf of the department of emergency services.
He said that after a month or two of working to streamline the new system, the county’s EMS department is beginning to get some revenue out of the effort.
“It’s going well,” Hartgrove said Tuesday. “When we were getting the system in place over the first two months, through July and August, we didn’t have a lot of money coming in and were simply trying to resolve which accounts we could go after. But now, as of September 17, we’ve collected $109,000, and that’s money we wouldn’t have without these collection efforts.”
He said those collection methods can involve garnishment of wages, attachments of sources such as income tax returns and bank accounts and liens.
According to Hartgrove, the new effort has more teeth than the former collection process, which simply turned the account over to a collection agency, which would call the delinquent account-holder, but do little else.
“Now, we can actually garnish your paycheck, so that’s hard to ignore,” he said. “What we’re after and what we are trying to do is make our EMS department more self-sufficient. These are 100 percent EMS funds, but to me every dollar that comes into the county is a dollar in the county.”
By placing the collection of bills owed to the EMS in the hands of the tax department, and giving it the authority to use all legal collection methods, Hartgrove said he is confident Surry can make up some of the approximate $3 million owed to the county.
“On average, we’re collecting about $1,000 a day, which is great,” Hartgrove said. “Right now, we’re enforcing 600 garnishments and that is money coming in on a daily basis.”
According to Hartgrove, those 600 garnishments cover more than $415,000, out of which $109,000 has been collected.
“We still have quite a bit more to collect,” he said. “We’ve only collected about a fourth of what is in the accounts, but we’re collecting it.”
Hartgrove said several hundred additional garnishments are in the process of being enforced.
The collection efforts at this point are primarily through garnishments, since Hartgrove said placing liens on property is a “little more complicated.”
“It’s very expensive, and we’re going to look at accounts we can identify as being worth our while,” he said. “Unless there is accumulated debt, we probably won’t be using it.
“Our primary task is to use tools like garnishments and attachment of bank accounts,” the tax collector said. “We haven’t yet done any attachments, but it’s certainly in the works.”
Hartgrove had a message for delinquent account-holders.
“If you owe something, it needs to be paid,” he said. “We’ll do everything we can to help you, but it needs to be paid.”
Copyright 2014 The Mount Airy News