The city of Bellaire set its scope on $4.1 million in uncollected court fees after the city council this week voted to hire a collections law firm to go after people who haven’t paid over the past 10 years.
“I saw this, I thought the numbers were wrong. This is incredible we have $4 million,” said Bellaire Mayor Cindy Siegel. “I think this is appalling.”
In the past, the city hasn’t been aggressive about pursuing offenders to pay their warrants. But now, the Bellaire Finance Department will hand over 16,946 unpaid traffic warrants to the law firm of Perdue, Brandon, Fielder, Collins & Mott. The collections firm plans to track down anyone who got a ticket in Bellaire and failed to pay their fees within 60 days of the deadline, as well as people who never bothered to show up for their court dates in the first place.
“We send out demand letters urging people to contact the court,” said Michael Darlow, an attorney with the firm. “Pay it, talk to the judge about not paying it, spend time in jail and get credit. Somehow get in and resolve your situation.”
For warrants issued after June 2003, a state law authorizes the city to collect an additional 30 percent to pay the collections firm. For example, if someone owes $300 for an unpaid ticket, they would now pay $390. The city would keep $300 and send $90 back to the law firm.
However, the same state law doesn’t authorize the city to collect the extra payment for any tickets issued before June 2003. The firm has still offered to track down those tickets, and the city agreed to pay 15 percent of each unpaid ticket for the service.
Bellaire Municipal Judge Lisa Wesely spoke before the city council on March 22 and urged council members to consider other options to collect unpaid warrants. Wesely said using the collections firm was one option, but she was concerned it would be difficult for people to shell out an additional 30 percent. Many of them don’t pay tickets in the first place because they don’t have enough money, she said.
Wesely said the city could pursue other methods like making Bellaire’s warrant officer more effective, purchasing subscriptions for address databases to track down offenders without the firm’s help, and subscribing to a state system that prevents those with warrants from renewing their driver’s licenses.
“My point is you may well want to do this,” Wesely said about hiring the collections firm. “But I also think you probably want to know what your other options may be.”
But council members questioned whether the city has the personnel and time resources to track down all the unpaid warrants on its own. They said the city needs to change its tactics, because business as usual is obviously not working.
“I think clearly there’s a problem,” said Councilman Will Hickman. “I think we should get Mr. Darlow’s firm working and in the meantime it could take us a year to figure out the best solution.”
Darlow’s law firm has already been collecting delinquent property taxes in Bellaire for 13 years, which is one reason City Manager Bernie Satterwhite trusted the company to pursue unpaid traffic warrants. On Monday, the city council also authorized the firm to try to collect overdue utility accounts. Right now, about 152 customers owe the city $18,757 for utilities.
“I don’t know how successful it’s going to be, but I think in these times when revenues are really critical, that’s why we brought this forward,” said Satterwhite.
I just received a very threatening letter from the City of Bellaire for violations that do not belong to me. Nowhere in the letter do they state that the violations may and/or may not belong to me, in fact the letter threatens me with arrest! The only thing I have in common with the person they are collecting from is my name, and that’s it.
So you can imagine how surprised I was to receive a letter where the first sentence states, “You have an outstanding warrant filed in the Municipal Court, City of Bellaire, Taxes in the amount listed below.” ($994.50). The letter goes on to state, “TO AVOID THE EMBARRASSMENT OF ARREST OR LICENSE SUSPENSION, RETURN YOUR PAYMENT IN THE AMOUNT BELOW.”
These are VERY unethical collection tactics to use on a first letter to collect when you don’t even know if you have the right person at all and you don’t even mention in your letter that you’re just going on a fishing expedition.
Needless to say, I am pretty pissed off about this, and I’m contemplating communicating with the city council of Bellaire and possibly the Texas State Bar for the unethical behavior of the law firm of PerdueBrandonFielderCollins&Mott LLP, Attorneys at Law…