Carbon County clerk of courts Tyra Boni reported that there is a huge outstanding debt, about $25 million, owed to the victims, taxpayers and others from court costs imposed on defendants when they are sentenced.

Following is Boni’s report.

“At the completion of processing the backlog in the Clerk of Courts office we were left with a huge outstanding debt of $25 million owed to victims, county taxpayers, county offices, the state of Pennsylvania, and our local county municipalities.

“Over the past year process changes were implemented in the collections division in order to appropriately notify all defendants of their total costs, fines, and restitution and if applicable to place those individuals on a payment plan in a more efficient manner.

“This started collection on those debts in a more expeditious manner and ultimately increased collections to $1.83 million in Carbon County. However, at this point there is a significant amount of funds, $6.5 million out of $25 million, that are delinquent for an extended period of time. For this reason, we have developed a new workflow to address these delinquencies and recuperate this revenue.

“Considering these accounts were allowed to become delinquent due to prior office mismanagement there will be a one-time opportunity to bring delinquent accounts current. Accounts can be brought current by paying 30% of costs, fines, and restitution owed upfront to reset their payment plan.

“If a reset payment plan goes delinquent by more than 90 days or if the defendant denies resetting a payment plan it will be sent to a designated outside collection agency (Alliance One) the following month, at which time an additional 20% fee will be added to the overall balance owed of the account.

“This 20% fee is paid by the defendant to the collection agency for services rendered and does not cost Carbon County for services or detract from owed funds collected. The collections agency will assist with cases after the defendant has been notified of delinquency and will be pursuing the oldest outstanding cases first.

“This new workflow has gone into effect April 2021 and our first $1 million has been submitted to this collection agency. Approximately $19 million is now actively being pursued on payment plans by efforts of our office and the balance of delinquencies of $5.5 million is being evaluated for the next submission to our outside collection agency.”