Ville Platte contracts outside company to collect delinquent taxes

During its regular monthly meeting Tuesday evening, the Ville Platte City Council voted unanimously to enter into a one-year contract with an outside company to handle the processing fees and delinquent property taxes, including tax sales.
The arrangement will not cost the city any money. Instead, the processing agency, Louisiana Municipal Advisory and Technical Services Bureau, will receive compensation through a schedule of fees to be paid by the delinquent taxpayers.
According to Ronnie Harris, the executive director for the Louisiana Municipal Association, this arrangement greatly benefits the city. Normally, he said, many cities hesitate to begin the process of collecting on delinquent taxes because of a dual burden on their limited resources: money and manpower.
The process of collecting delinquent taxes and handling tax sales is very complicated, he said, being governed by many different state and federal statutes. This causes cities to devote several man-hours to ensure that each part of the process is correctly done.
The advantage of using LaMATS, he said, is that the company will employ experts in the area of delinquent tax collections. The particular company, Archon Information Services, has been handling delinquent tax collection and sales for nearly a decade, following Hurricane Katrina.
Because of its long experience, it knows the various state and federal laws, and it can handle the process in a very cost-effective manner.
In other business, the council voted to change the March meeting date. The next regular meeting will be on Tuesday, March 3. It was moved because the council and mayor are expected to be at the National League of Cities conference on the regularly scheduled day, March 10.
The council named the new walking trail at the MLK Center after the first black Ville Platte councilman, Coach Curley Dossman. An official ribbon-cutting ceremony will be scheduled in the near future.
Mayor Jennifer Vidrine boasted about the new street sweeper that had arrived earlier in the day. The $190,000 vehicle will be used on the main city streets on Sundays from 3-11 p.m.; and in the rest of the city from Monday-Thursday.
Acting on Police Chief Neil Lartigue’s recommendation, the council hired another full-time patrolman. This increases the police force to 28 officers.
The city accepted the donation of an air hockey table from Lonnie Fontenot to the Boys and Girls Club.
Finally, the council voted to remove all signs from telephone and CLECO utility poles. Putting signs on the poles is illegal. The signs that are collected will be housed at the city barn for 10 days before being discarded.