Paradise Uses Technology to Speed Accounts to Collectors

Officials in Hawaii unveiled a new fancy-pants electronic system last month that allows the state Judiciary Department to automatically forward traffic judgments to a collection agency on the mainland. The system has already paid dividends for the Pacific Ocean archipelago, according to a press release from the department Wednesday.

In November alone, Judiciary forwarded some $6.2 million in delinquent traffic judgment accounts to Austin, Texas-based Municipal Services Bureau, a collection agency that specializes in collecting local government debt ("Hawaii Judiciary Rules MSB the One for Collections," Oct. 9). Under the old manual system, the department forwarded a total of $7.85 million in accounts to MSB over the course of two years.

The new system automatically – and electronically – refers unpaid judgments to MSB using preset thresholds. For example, unpaid judgments of less than $500 are sent after 90 days, while unpaid judgments greater than $500 are sent after 180 days. Also, citizens under the age of 18 are not referred to MSB for collection. The system can also receive money directly from MSB once it is collected. Debtors must pay MSB’s 21 percent fee which is tacked on to the original fine.

Thomas Keller, administrative director of the courts in Hawaii, commented in the release, “We expect that the percentage of monies collected on delinquent accounts will significantly increase because once the collection agency receives this information, it will pursue persons who have chosen not to pay their fines.”

That expectation appears to be coming to fruition. Last month, the state had $82,000 electronically deposited in its bank account from the $6.2 million it forwarded to MSB. Over the past two years, the state had manually received $777,160 of the $7.85 million it had farmed out to MSB.

In November, state officials got to work clearing out a backlog of old cases, which explains the much higher than average total sent last month, according to the Honolulu Advertiser.