Business news briefs for June 7, 2004

Monday, June 7, 2004 | 11:21 a.m.

Security duties outsourced

Valley Hospital laid off 15 longtime security guards and hired Allied Security Inc. to provide security last week.

The former security guards were encouraged to apply for positions with Allied Security, which also provides security at some of the other Las Vegas Valley hospitals, said Mike Tymczyn, spokesman for the Valley Health System, which includes Valley Hospital.

"It was a business decision to improve hospital security and patient safety," Tymczyn said.

He said the decision to lay off the security guards was not part of the corporate layoffs that were announced a few weeks ago, which led to a 2.5 percent employee cut at each of Universal Health Services-owned Valley Health System's Las Vegas-area hospitals.

Credit service bankrupt

GERMANTOWN, Md. -- AmeriDebt, a credit counseling service that has been accused of misleading hundreds of thousands of customers, filed for bankruptcy protection on Saturday in Maryland.

An AmeriDebt spokeswoman, Christine Kraly, said the Chapter 11 filing would not affect the company's operations.

AmeriDebt is among the largest of the credit counseling companies, which get much of their revenue from creditors who typically give them a portion of the debt recovered. The companies are supposed to use the money to provide financial advice.

The Federal Trade Commission sued AmeriDebt last November, contending that it disguised fees and did not properly educate customers about how to emerge from debt. The company said then that it would "defend itself vigorously."