Oregon to Hire Skip Tracer to Reduce Delinquent Payments

The State of Oregon is seeking one or more firms to conduct skip tracing in order to reduce the amount of delinquent payments that are outsourced to collection agencies, Gerold Floyd, Oregon’s statewide accounts receivable management coordinator, tells insideARM.

The state contracts with multiple firms to collect its debt and to collect debt for the counties and municipalities that participate in Oregon’s statewide purchasing program, Floyd said.

In its new RFP, Oregon is seeking a firm to conduct skip tracing before the delinquencies are turned over to collection firms, enabling the state to keep more of the collected monies, Floyd said. The state plans to award the contract by the end of April.

The potential amount of the contract is undetermined, Floyd said, because the state hopes to hire a firm that will offer cafeteria-style pricing, with higher prices for more complex services. This way, a state agency that needs only an address doesn’t have to pay a higher price for a higher level of skip tracing, Floyd explained.

Last year, Oregon turned over $657 million in delinquencies to collection agencies, with $127 million of that amount made up of new accounts that started in 2007. The state recovered 2.1 percent of that total through collection agencies during the year, Floyd said. That recovery rate was down from the average 2.5 percent rate that Oregon typically recovers through agencies. Floyd said the lower 2007 performance was due to a difference in the way one of the largest collection firms reported its information.

Oregon doesn’t break out its collection statistics by municipality or county.

The RFP and other pertinent information are available at the Oregon Procurement Information Network (ORPIN) http://orpin.oregon.gov/open.dll/welcome. Registration is required.