Solutia TAS Wins $1.7 Million Tenn. Ticket Account

The Lebanon, Tenn., police department hired Columbia, Tenn.-based Solutia TAS in February to recover more than $1.7 million in unpaid parking tickets.

In the first month of the collections, the firm recovered a little more than $19,000 of the outstanding debt, according to a police department spokesperson. Solutia earns fees of 40 percent of the outstanding fine, capped at $50 per account. The violator must pay that in addition to the amount of the violation.

The nice part for Lebanon? "The collection service doesn’t cost us a dime," Lebanon Police Chief Scott Bowen told insideARM.

Bowen said the department has 16,000 unpaid fines, averaging $104 apiece, dating back to 1998. The 1998 cutoff was used, Bowen said, because that’s how far back the records for the fines are maintained electronically. It’s time for people to pay the fines, Bowen said.

“These funds are very important for the city and the state. We understand that people can get sick or lose a job, but they have to pay these tickets. We issue them to teach a lesson. If they don’t pay the ticket, I don’t know that they get the lesson learned. We’re trying to decrease the number of accidents," said Bowen.

Solutia TAS was formerly known as Tennessee Adjustment Service. It started in 1963 as a medical collection service, expanded into government collections about three years ago, then into commercial collections more recently, according to office manager Laura Boyd.

The company works primarily in Tennessee, but has some medical collection clients in Alabama, Mississippi and South Carolina. It also collects delinquent fees for about a dozen Tennessee counties and a handful of state municipalities, in addition to Lebanon, Boyd added.