Controller again asks for larger role in state debt collection

Tuesday, April 27, 1999 | 12:11 p.m.

She made the request Monday during an Assembly Government Affairs Committee review of SB500, designed to enhance efforts by state agencies to get the money owed in taxes, fees and other debts to the state.

A legislative auditor's report issued a year ago charged that agencies lack consistent collection policies and at times the statutory power to collect debts. As a result, auditors estimated that $50 million of the $103 million owed as of June 1996 was uncollectable.

The bill is designed to put the initial burden on the agencies themselves, providing every agency in the state with the ability to go to small claims court, impose administrative liens or even refer debts to outside collection agencies.

The effort would be coordinated by the attorney general's office.

While Perry Comeaux, director of administration, said he had no major problem with the proposed amendments, Anne Cathcart of the attorney general's office said she wanted to run them by the task force which developed the plan first.

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