Saturday, March 14, 2009

AREAS OF CONCERN 4: COLLECTION ON ESTIMATED $700,000 IN OUTSTANDING COURT COSTS & FINES

Area of Concern number 4 that was brought up during the campaign in November 2008 was the collection on the estimated $700,000 in outstanding court costs and fines.

Well, that’s what she admitted to in this Sandusky Register article

However, the number could realistically be in the millions. This is money that the county will never see because Johnson either will not or doesn’t know how to collect on those funds. And, these funds have been accumulating over the past 20 years!

Her opponent, Steve Schaeffer stated how he would have collected those fees. In the Sandusky Register on line Q & A from Oct. 29, 2008 here, a reader posed the following question, If elected what will be your number one priority as Clerk of Courts and specifically how will you go about accomplishing that goal?

Schaeffer’s response was, “Sorry but my number one goal is to improve overall operations of the office and that requires several steps: a. To collect the $700,00 plus in delinquent accounts to give back to the county treasury and state programs using a private collection agency which has been authorized by the State of Ohio since 2002 but the present Clerk has not moved on it…”

Johnson’s response was about “Web Service” as she puts it (which she has not addressed either. See “Areas of Concern: Getting Records on Line: Parts 1-4 in this series on this blog, and the above SR web link) and the rest was flowery – powder puff garbage. She NEVER in the campaign addressed this issue. If we are talking $700,000 to millions of dollars, this is SCARY! !

Also of note is the Morning Journal article on October 30, 2008 where this was brought to the public’s attention here.

To you the voter I ask: Does this look like she is doing the job that she was elected by YOU THE VOTERS AND TAX PAYERS of Erie County to do?

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