Supervisors approve layoffs at Merced County revenue department

Merced County will lay off five employees from its Revenue & Reimbursement Department in July, the first move in dissolving a county department losing one of its most significant accounts.

The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved eliminating five filled positions and deleting four vacant ones. The layoffs, which will be effective July 26, include debt collectors, a supervising accounting technician and collection clerks. The move will save $873,968, according to county documents.

The department, which has 12 employees, collects debts for a number of county agencies: fire, human services, agricultural and the library, to name a few. But its largest account – court-ordered debt – made up 75 percent of the department’s workload.

Merced Superior Court announced in June its intention to pull the debt accounts, calling into question the department’s ability to continue operating. County Executive Officer Jim Brown put together an independent three-person team to evaluate the department and recommend possible actions.

During Tuesday’s board meeting, Brown said the county wanted to “minimize the impact on people’s lives.”

But the move leaves three people in the Revenue & Reimbursement Department, which is one of the departments under the supervision of county Treasurer-Tax Collector Karen Adams. Two of those three remaining employees will be transferred to similar positions at the Human Services Agency, according to Brown.

Adams could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Also Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors approved drafting a request for proposal to find an outside collection service to take over the remaining accounts handled by Revenue & Reimbursement, eventually getting rid of the department.

Brown last year said the department wouldn’t be dissolved, but a current employee – who spoke on condition of anonymity – said the department can’t support itself without the court-ordered debt account.

“Quite honestly, there was no choice,” she said. “They had to do it. Because if there was no revenue to collect on, how can you keep people here to collect revenue?”

Taking over the accounts could be a cost-saving measure for the courts. Last year, Brown said the county’s revenue department charged 70 cents on the dollar on the court-ordered debt accounts. The average county collection effort across the state is 24 cents on the dollar.

The layoffs approved Tuesday aren’t the first shakeup at Revenue & Reimbursement.

A collections supervisor, Anthony J. Thompson, was arrested by the Sheriff’s Department in February 2014 on suspicion of offering to reduce fines and fees owed to the county in exchange for “dates.” No charges have been filed against Thompson, and the case remains under investigation.

Also last year, a Merced Sun-Star investigation uncovered that Adams had stopped collecting overdue taxes on delinquent accounts through bank seizures and was refunding money to politically connected business owners.

The courts are expected to take over the accounts July 1.

This story was originally published April 21, 2015 at 7:52 PM with the headline "Supervisors approve layoffs at Merced County revenue department."