5.4. ERMUSR 08-10-2010 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Elk River Municipal Utilities 13069 Orono Parkway • P.O. Box 430 Elk River, MN 55330-0430 UTILITIES COMMISSION MEETING Phone: 763.441.2020 Fax: 763.44 L8099 TO: FROM: Elk River Municipal Utilities Commission Theresa Slominski -Finance Director John Dietz, Chair Jerry Gumphrey, Vice Chair D 1 Thom son, Trustee MEETING DATE: AGENDA ITEM NUMBER: Au st 10, 2010 5.4 SUBJECT: Commercial Customers Procedure for Earl Identification of Potential Default BACKGROUND: At the July Commission meeting second quarter write-offs were presented for review. Out of that review a request was made for management to meet with staff and create a procedure for early identification of potential default of the commercial customers. DISCUSSION: A core group of staff (Troy Adams, Director of Operations; Greg Scherber, Assistant Office Manager; Michelle Martindale, Credit and Collections Specialist; and myself) met initially to brainstorm and determine the best course of action to meet this request and have the following to present. We determined that our policy is adequate, but the internal procedures could be enhanced. The first item noted was the necessity to have a list or report to work from each month. We don't have the capability of creating such a list by customer class, but we do have an Accounts Receivable report mechanism in place that, with some "tweaking", can provide a customer balance listing that would identify accounts that hadn't paid by the due date of the given month and have a designated $ balance (we initially looked at anything greater than $500.) The list could contain high use residential customers and apartment buildings and so an additional review to pare down the list is necessary. This list would then be reviewed by the Credit and Collections Specialist who would identify the customers that should be followed up with. Depending on the number of customers to follow up with, the Credit and Collections Specialist would contact them or create a list for any member of this core group to contact. This contact would be an opportunity to introduce ourselves to the customer, let them know that we are watching their payment activity, find out what their needs or issues may be, and establish a point of contact for any future calls. We will be contacting these customers on their first missed payment (in a cycle of approximately 20 days) and so want to be perceived as concerned diligent professionals at this point, not vigilante payment hounds.