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Let's make a deal

Hamlet flexible in collecting past due accounts

Darrell Greer
Northern News Services

Rankin Inlet (Nov 27/02) - The hamlet of Rankin Inlet is moving to collect on past due accounts for municipal services.

An estimated $650,000 is still owed the hamlet, the majority of which stems from garbage collection and land leases.

Finance committee member Justin Merritt says collecting on the past due accounts has been a lengthy and difficult process.

"The first thing we had to do was verify that every account we were going to try to collect on was accurate," says Merritt.

"Once that was completed, we sent out notices to people who were overdue and followed that up with registered letters."

The letters asked those in arrears to contact the hamlet to verify their account was correct, identify any problems that may exist and discuss some form of payment arrangement based on what they could afford to pay.

A third letter has been sent to those who still have not responded.

"We were put in a position where we had to indicate the possibility of legal action if an attempt to resolve the matter wasn't made.

"We filed with small claims court -- with the full support of hamlet council -- against anyone who still hadn't responded to our requests."

Merritt says the hamlet realized the past due accounts were a serious problem about three years ago.

At that time, however, council was occupied with getting the hamlet's budget in order and its deficit under control.

Then attentions were turned to the hiring of a senior administrator and a financial comptroller.

That, says Merritt, is why the process took so long.

"Our initial accounts receivable was more than $800,000, but, from that, there was a motion passed to write off about $50,000.

"About a year ago, we started earnestly going after the money owed and, since them, we've knocked it down by about another $100,000."

Merritt says the collection process will be slow because so many individuals have agreed to payment terms spread out over time.

He says the hamlet is not going to court against people who have recognized their debt, but have shown they can't afford to pay right now.

"We're taking the people to court we think have the assets to be paying down their debt and haven't responded to our notices. If they're not talking to us, we have to assume they're ignoring us."