With an estimated $541 million in unpaid debt, the Los Angeles City Council this week created a position that will be held responsible for deciding whether debts should be placed into collections or if they should be charged off.
The inspector general for collections job will serve as a "collection sheriff" for the city's fast-growing unpaid debt tally, reports the Los Angeles Times. The role likely will be filled by a current city official, the paper reports.
Los Angeles has been plagued with chronically unpaid debt. Debt collection in the city has been handled on an agency-by-agency basis and the government departments have not performed at the same level. The city's fire department, for example, is owed an estimated $250 million in unpaid ambulance fees while the Department of Transportation has some $213 million in unpaid parking tickets.
