Click here to subscribe today or Login.
WILKES-BARRE — The money’s still out there for the taking, so a new company is going to go after unpaid fines owed to local district courts, a county official said Monday.
The revenue could also be a boon to the city.
The program will soon begin at the offices of the two district judges in Wilkes-Barre, said Luzerne County Court Administrator Michael Shucosky. The services will be expanded to other offices in the future.
The county signed a contract with nCourt for the collection of unpaid traffic and parking tickets and other fines, Shucosky said.
“They are a very large company and they do this nationally.” He added nCourt has the ability to locate people who’ve moved out of the area and out of state.
“They’re able to do searches for people our resources do not allow us to do,” Shucosky explained.
Georgia-based nCourt has been in existence for more than 15 years providing payment solutions and services to court and government clients, said Shantal Raymer, a company spokeswoman. It has more than 1,800 clients in 32 states.
The company offers a variety of payment channels such as credit and debit cards and other mobile payment services such as Apple Pay for its clients to collect and for people to pay around the clock, said Raymer.
The county has been searching for a solution to collect delinquent fines at least a year old and raise revenues that would be shared with the state and municipalities. Technical issues contributed to the delay as did a letter last year from the U.S. Department of Justice advising the county to make sure its collections program complied with constitutional issues.
Wilkes-Barre was dependent upon the fines to plug a $250,000 hole in its 2016 budget, but got none of the money as the search dragged on. The city eliminated the line-item revenue from this year’s budget.
Wilkes-Barre City Administrator Ted Wampole said he was unaware of the county’s selection of nCourt for the task. He said he welcomed any money the collections program returned to the city.
“A dollar puts us ahead,” Wampole said.
The county had been dealing with Navient of Delaware to pursue the unpaid fines. The company would have collected a fee for its services that would be added to the fines.
Shucosky said the county chose nCourt after issuing a request for proposals and soliciting for third-party collection services. The company also will install equipment at the offices of District Judges Rick Cronauer and Tom Malloy in Wilkes-Barre for same-day payments. They should be operational in a few weeks.
Under the deal with nCourt, the company would be paid through a surcharge imposed on top of the fine. Partial payments will be accepted, and the fines collected will be remitted to the county. That “eliminates the concern” the county is spending money on collections, Shucosky said.
That’s one of the key benefits for nCourt’s clients, Raymer said. “They don’t have to pay for it. It’s free for them,” she said.
Shucosky was unsure of how much money was owed for past-due fines and what the county’s share would be. Last year, $7.5 million in fines were paid through the district court offices. “The county got $1 million in the end,” he said.