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Schools Target Bounced Checks

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By RONNIE BLAIR, The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 23, 2007

LAND O' LAKES - The Pasco County School District, stung too many times by bad checks, may hire a private company to handle collections.

The company, ePayments Educational Financial Services, would help the district collect on about 3,000 bad checks it receives annually, said Rick Kurtz, the district's director of food and nutrition services.

The Denver-based company won't call bad-check writers on the telephone to elicit a payment, though, Kurtz said.

Here's how the process would work: The bank would send the district's returned checks directly to ePayments, which would resubmit them in an attempt to collect the money electronically from the person's account.

If the company can't collect electronically, it would send up to three letters to the check writer. After the third letter, no further effort is made to collect.

The school district would not pay the company. Instead, ePayments would collect a $25 fee from the check writer, the same fee the district already charges.
Kurtz said he initially researched a contract just for food and nutrition services, which anticipates receiving 40,000 checks this year, mostly from parents for their children's cafeteria meals. About 650 of those checks are expected to bounce.

It became evident the entire district could benefit from working with ePayments, he said.

The school board is expected to vote on the contract Dec. 3.

Reporter Ronnie Blair can be reached at (813) 948-4218 or rblair@tampatrib.com.

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