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Send us your news Public Service Announcement Submit Advertising Classified Advertising Issue Archives 28 February 2008 |
Pikeville wants deadbeats to pay up
By Sarah A. Wise
NL Staff Writer
6 March 2008 — Talk turned to money in the latter part of Pikeville’s March meeting on Monday night.
Commissioner Dennis Lewis opened a conversation about the NC Debt Setoff plan, which has received a lot of attention in the past few months.
He handed out copies of a sample letter, as well as a list of amounts owed to the town to citizens attending the meeting.
Commissioner Al Greene then stated that he had heard a lot of talk around town about the board “writing off” debt.
“It seems like all we hear is about how much money we’ve lost, or that we’ve written off $12,000,” he said.
Commissioner Greene sought to clarify that the town has not written off the almost $12,000 of debt it accrued from citizens failing to make final utility payments. Instead, the debt has been turned over to a collection agency. The agency claims money owed to the town from tax returns the debtors filed.
“That means if you are supposed to get a tax return of $525, and you owe the town $500,” he said, “You’ll probably get $25 and the $500 will come to us.”
That process would continue on debt, he said, until the amount owed is less than $50.
So far, the town had reclaimed $733 of the debt.
“That doesn’t look like much, I know, but it’s $733 we didn’t have,” he said.
Commissioner Lewis added that the town is going about collecting the money in the most effective way possible.
He then turned talk to prevention of further debt of that magnitude, saying that in every single case, the debtor was a renter, not a landowner.
Mr. Lewis then proposed that the town look at doubling the utility deposit for renters.
“Not a single debt was a property owner, that tells us problem is renters, and we need to address the problem,” he said.
Talk then turned to a grant proposal for the Pikeville Police Department.
Officer Eva Scott came before the board to ask permission to apply for a grant with the Governor’s Highway Safety Program. The grant would cover the cost of adding a third patrol car to the department, which Officer Scott pointed out would be beneficial when the other cars are at events around town.
The grant is a 75-25 grant, which means that the town would be reimbursed by the grant for 75 percent of the cost. Officer Scott said the total cost would run around $48,000 initially, but the town would be reimbursed for all but $12,000 of that cost.
The board initially hesitated to approve the proposal immediately without a preliminary budget meeting but then voted to allow the grant application, stipulating that if they found it financially impossible, they could reject the grant.
The board will hold their first budget meeting for the next fiscal year on March 18 at 7:00.
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