5.2. ERMUSR 01-10-2012 - 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: 763.441.8099 TO: FROM: Elk River Municipal Utilities Commission Theresa Slominski -Finance Director John Dietz, Chair Daryl Thompson, Trustee MEETING DATE: AGENDA ITEM NUMBER: Janua 10, 2012 5,2 SUBJECT: Review and Consider Fourth uarter Write-offs BACKGROUND: Fourth quarter write-offs are presented for your review. These amounts cover items since the last write- _. offs (which were through 9/30/2011) and total $22,411.98. The breakdown is $3,150.74 in accounts sent to a collection agency for further collection efforts, and $782.65 that are written off with no further collection efforts, $18,263.35 submitted to the Revenue Recapture process (new this summer) and $215.24 will be assessed next year. Additionally, there is $3,204.66 that is being written off in med-alert accounts. DISCUSSION: As noted before, there is a $50 minimum limit for assessment and when amounts fall below that, there is no recourse but collection. Therefore, there are some assessable services that appear in the collection write-off column. There are also some bankruptcies noted. The med-alert accounts that are being written off are the final result of a long process to properly bill and collect on these customers. To review the process, we started on a program with the County to place med-alert units in individuals' homes that were paid for through insurance. Originally the County billed us for these units and also paid the insurance companies. After a few years, the County removed themselves from the billing and told us to bill the insurances directly. This proved to be a very big challenge, and one we were unprepared for. After trying unsuccessfully to bill 100% through the insurance companies' various mandated means and insurance code, we recruited Advantage Billing to do this billing for us on a per contract basis. Advantage Billing has been a great resource for us to handle and secure recovery on the insurance billings, and will definitely help with future billings. However, even they were unable to collect on some of the billings because of the time lapse from when the account was firs[ billed through our system to when we turned the accounts over to them. The collection efforts put in place this year have resulted in smaller write-offs for 2011. With [he above mentioned write-offs the year-to-date total for 2011 would be $80,888 (write-offs for 2010 were $116,246.81.) This is less than 1/2% (.003) of total sales. Also, throughout the year we have collected approximately $8,300 on accounts previously written off. ACTION REQUESTED: Staff recommends that the Elk River Municipal Utilities Commission accept this write-off listing for the fourth quarter of 201 1.