EDITORIALS Money on the table

IMAGINE the reaction of a businessman if he saw thousands of dollars owed him but no way to collect it. You can probably also imagine how he’d deal with the problem: He’d collect it even if he had to hire someone to do it.

You don’t have to use your imagination in the case of Washington and Benton Counties. Those local governments are leaving lots of debts uncollected because their police forces are too busy to go out and collect it. And for good reason: They’re responding to immediate dangers, not collecting long-delinquent fines.

In Washington County,deputies have almost 9,000 unserved warrants for fines assessed because of various felonies, misdemeanors and juvenile offenses, you name it. Benton County has another 7,000. And there’s no telling how many more thousands of warrants are floating around all those community police departments in each county.

At the police department in Springdale, the chief says she’s sure another officer could pay for his position by just making a coupla-three arrests every workday. “There’s a huge amount of money left out there,” said Kathy O’Kelley.

Jeff Harper, Springdale’s city attorney, says there’s just no way to determine how much potential revenue is being lost because the warrants aren’t being collected.

Chief O’Kelley is the first to agree that her department isn’t getting thisjob done. But she’s got her priorities straight, and Job No. 1 is public safety. And that means answering calls-not collecting accounts receivable.

That same problem seems to exist throughout Northwest Arkansas. Most law enforcement agencies will travel no more than 50 miles to serve a misdemeanor warrant, although they’ll stretchtheir boundaries to deal with more severe crimes whenever possible.

But when someone charged with a misdemeanor skips to another state, it’s more trouble than it’s eventually worth to track them down. Law enforcement agencies likeall others must work within a tight budget. And that leaves few or no dollars to extradite, travel and return those charged with misdemeanors.

But that money might get collected after all. A new city ordinance in Springdale could show the way-if it’s enforced in connection with an interstate compact that bars these deadbeats from renewing their driver’s licenses until they’ve resolved their failure to appear in court.

What a good idea-for every city.

Here’s another winner: Local law enforcement might consider hiring a private firm to collect those outstanding warrants in return for a share of the proceeds. That’s what private businesses do-and those bill collectors can be mighty persistent. Why not put them to work for the public good? Even if they get to keep half the revenue, half for the taxpayers is better than all of nothing.