A Simple Solution to Fast Revenue Recovery for State and Local Governments

In consideration of the economic impact that the pandemic has had on citizens, many state and local governments have chosen to remove penalties for non-payment and pause collection activities for court fines, traffic tickets, and other revenue-generating fees until 2022. Though in many ways this is undoubtedly the right thing to do for their communities, with covid-related declines in other revenue streams such as property, occupancy, and sales and use taxes, failing to collect on fees and fines puts their budgets in an even more precarious position.

States have varying strategies for making up this revenue loss. California wants to allocate more funds to the courts to eliminate their dependency on fines and fees, while Nevada prefers the opposite approach, ramping up focus on this kind of revenue by creating new code violations. In the scramble to fix a growing funding problem, local governments may be overlooking a simple solution—

Offering settlement on aged accounts.

When collections resume in 2022, offering citizens the option to settle in full has the potential to generate a lot of revenue, fast. The small discount on their balance not only acts as a motivator for citizens to quickly resolve the account but is often still less costly than the resources needed to pursue the balance over time. And settlement offers can be seen as an act of kindness, especially after nearly two years of financial hardship. Offering citizens this option gives them an opportunity for a fresh start and builds goodwill between your organization and the community it serves.

We ran a settlement campaign in 2020 that yielded a 300% increase in settlements in full.

With some projections estimating that state and local governments will suffer a collective $900 billion shortfall between 2020 and 2022, and the pandemic continuing to strain resources, every dollar of recovered revenue is essential. Professional has 85 years of experience with the special needs of government collections. Our respectful and collaborative approach to account resolution boasts 5-10% higher than industry average returns while maintaining the positive relationships necessary for building trust with your communities.