By Megan Ashley Fink

NATCHEZ — A local collections agency appeared before the Natchez Board of Aldermen Tuesday to propose a plan to assist the city in the collection of municipal court overdue fines and tickets.

President and owner of Receivable Solutions, Bruce Brice Jr., proposed the board hire the company to collect the city’s delinquent fines.

Brice said his company currently serves several counties in Mississippi and does business in 22 other states.

Brice said that the city was legally allowed to add a 25 percent to past-due fines on in-state residents and 75 percent to unpaid fines on out-of-state residents in order to pay the collection agency for its work in collecting city revenue.

Brice said his company carried all necessary bonds, and would be better equipped to collect municipal fines in Natchez than a company that was not located in the city.

“We know who we’re dealing with and how to entice them to pay,” Brice said.

The board of aldermen heard a presentation from Natchez Municipal Judge Jim Blough at its Nov. 10 meeting regarding a reported 2011 agreement between the city and collections company American Municipal Services of Carrollton, Texas.

Deborah Sivira with AMS appeared before the board at a previous meeting to inform the board the company and the city had an agreement and that Blough had been uncooperative with turning documents over to AMS to begin the collection process.

The board found that no contract existed with AMS, and agreed to research both in-house and third-party solutions to the problem of uncollected municipal fines.

Blough previously expressed his disagreement with adding 25 percent of the total fine on top of the cost to the defendant as AMS proposed. The collections company would keep the 25 percent added to the fine as the company’s fee, and the total payment for the fine would be remitted to the city.

Receivable Solutions proposed a similar arrangement at the Tuesday meeting.

Blough has said if a defendant already cannot pay the fine against them, they would likely not be able to pay an increased fine.

Blough pointed to instances in which other cities have come under fire and been sued by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center for collection practices.

The Natchez Police Department does not have a designated warrant officer, and officers serve warrants when they can, Blough said. Aldermen previously discussed possibly designating an officer to issue warrant and/or using the municipal court officer to notify defendants of delinquent fines and impending warrants, which Brown said was done in his last tenure as mayor and resulted in increased collections.

Blough said he does not know the exact figure, but estimated the total fines outstanding total less than $100,000.

In other news:

– The board voted to join the National League of Cities and endorsed Mayor Brown’s joining of the Compact of Mayors of the USA. Both organizations are related to environmental issues such as global warming and pollution.

The National League of Cities annual dues for a city the size of Natchez are $1,489, based on information from the organization’s website. Costs associated with membership in the Compact of Mayors of the USA were not immediately available.

Brown said the board’s actions would benefit his efforts in attending an environmental conference of world leaders in Paris next month.