Jeff Bergosh Blog: Millions Uncollected...

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I am one member of a five person board. The opinions I express on this forum are mine only, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Escambia County Staff, Administrators, Employees, or anyone else associated with Escambia County Florida. I am interested in establishing this blog as a means of additional transparency to the public, outreach to the community, and information dissemination to all who choose to look. Feedback is welcome, but because public participation is equally encouraged, appropriate language and decorum is mandatory. Although this is not my campaign site for re-election--sometimes campaign related information will be discussed, therefore in an abundance of caution I add the following :

Friday, February 17, 2017

Millions Uncollected...

for FY 2016-2017, Escambia County was stiffed for $2.2Million in unpaid Ambulance Ride Bills....

One of the items that was discussed at yesterday's BCC meeting was the write-down of $2.2Million Dollars in bad debts. The debt is not being forgiven, according to our back-up documentation and reiterated by staff, but this debt has already gone through primary and secondary collections processes, and now for accounting purposes this is being removed from the books. According to staff, this will go to a debt collector, and the forecast is that we "may" collect $40,000-80,000 of this $2.2Million. At the meeting, staff and a couple of commissioners stated that although this is a large amount, our percentage of overall collection of fees for the EMS department is about 65%--which is among the best percentages in the state. I have to question this big of a loss, I'm going to look into how other counties do this--maybe someone has a better method of going after those that do not pay? If nothing else--this is a huge eye-opener.