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1. |
The governing body of your county,
hospital, special purpose district, or other political
subdivision must pass a resolution authorizing the
Association of Counties to act as your claimant agent in the
collection of delinquent debts. Please fax or mail a copy of
this resolution to SCAC. Also, you must send a letter from your
attorney addressing the claimant agency’s eligibility to
participate in these debt collection programs. |
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2. |
Sign a Memorandum of
Understanding and Agreement between your county, hospital,
special purpose district, or other political subdivision and the
S.C. Association of Counties. |
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3. |
Complete the Participation Form
for your county, hospital, special purpose district, or
other political subdivision. Complete the Appointment of
Hearing Officer form, which identifies the Hearing Officer
who will fulfill the duties outlined in §12-56-65. All entities
must submit these forms in order to participate in the coming
year. |
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4. |
Begin gathering your list of
delinquent debts for the initial load: all debts submitted
must include social security numbers. The minimum debt total
submitted should be $300. Only new GEAR accounts should be
included in the initial load. Multiple debts may be
submitted for the same SSN but the DATE OF DEFAULT must be
different. The Association will provide each participant with a
computer software program for preparing its debt file, or the
entity may submit data in an ASCII format or Excel format as
specified by SCAC.
Current participants in GEAR will
receive an inventory report in early September with a
listing of debts already in the system. We recommend you review
this listing and send SCAC an adjustment file to reduce or zero
anyone, as necessary. |
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5 |
YOU NO LONGER NEED TO PROVIDE
ENVELOPES TO RENOTIFY DEBTORS ALREADY IN THE SYSTEM.
For new accounts entities must
notify debtors by letter of outstanding debts, using the
language set forth in the Setoff Debt Collection, as amended ,
Title 12, Chapter 56 of the South Carolina Code. The letter
includes the appeals process a debtor should follow to dispute a
debt. . SCAC also recommends adding a sentence to the letter
relating to administrative fees as authorized by §12-56-60 and
§12-56-63 of the Setoff Debt Collection Act.
We recommend that these notices
be mailed no later than October 2 (earlier, if possible, to
allow the debtors the 30 days required by the statute to satisfy
their debts, and to allow entities time for administrative
processing of these debts). |
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6. |
If a written protest is received
from a Debtor, you must complete and send the Notice of
Protest form to SCAC. All collection efforts will cease until
ample time for an appeal has been given. Please notify the
debtor of the date, time, and location of the informal hearing
using the address provided by the debtor in his notice of
protest. After hearing the protest, the Hearing Officer should
notify SCAC of the decision by sending the Certification Hearing
form. If the decision is appealed by the debtor, the Hearing
Officer should notify SCAC of any contest before the
Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) and the ALJ ruling. |
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7. |
The debt file must be submitted
to the Association of Counties no later than November 10. If
pulling data from more than one system, entities may submit
multiple files with different formats (SCAC Software, ASCII,
Excel). SCAC will compile all the files to prepare software for
the entity, as requested. A copy of the completed
certification form must be faxed or mailed to SCAC before we can
process the initial load. Files should be submitted using
electronic transfers through SCAC’s secure SSL software. |
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8. |
SCAC will send a Confirmation
Report to each entity showing the total number and dollar
amount of
records in the initial load file, as
well as a listing of records with errors. Entities may review
this listing and provide SCAC an adjustment file with
corrections within two weeks after receiving the confirmation.
SCAC will not load your
initial load until we have received verification of the totals
in the confirmation report. |
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9. |
All adjustments to new accounts
received before December 8 are guaranteed to be included in the
initial load sent to DOR. If you have adjustments after
December 8, please continue to send them to us and we will
attempt to include them in the initial load before we send it to
DOR. If we cannot process these adjustments before December 15,
we will send the adjustments to DOR as soon as we receive
confirmation that DOR has loaded your data into their system.
Once the accounts are sent to DOR,
any payment received by the Entity must be forwarded to the
Department of Revenue. Checks should be made payable to the
S.C. Department of Revenue. |
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10. |
SCAC’s technical staff will assist
you with downloading the new year’s version of the software
beginning January 1, if you are using our software. You will
be able to download this version through SCAC’s secure SSL web
transfer. This will allow you to download the 2006 changes to
the software on your system with the new accounts submitted and
the rollover accounts. To use the upgraded software, you must
have Internet access and have a currently supported Microsoft
Operating System (2000, XP, etc.) |
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11. |
Once the 2006 software is installed,
you may continue entering adjustments (or Balance
Updates) that zero accounts based on bankruptcies or charitable
reductions. Reductions based on payments should not be included
in an adjustment file since all payments should be forwarded to
DOR. These adjustments will be reflected in the match reports.
SCAC will send a confirmation report to you for all adjustment
files showing the total number and dollar amount of adjustments
received. If the amount differs from your records, please
contact SCAC immediately. |
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12. |
After DOR loads the debts into the
GEAR system, the Department will generate a letter to the
debtor notifying that the debt has been submitted for collection
through GEAR. |
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13. |
Payments not resolved within 45 days
will move to a second stage. All accounts with levy sources
may be levied. DOR will mail updated balance notices to
debtors after each payment is posted with the Department. |
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14. |
Upon receipt of the monthly GEAR
data, SCAC will process the data and send to each entity a
letter, checks or electronic deposit notification, detailed
report and file of transactions. With the debt software, you
will be able to download the data file and detailed report to
your computer through the Debt Software Transfer (SSL) Module.
The new Transfer module will download the information directly
to the debt folder allowing you to easily update your data file.
The Report Module allows you to print the detailed report. If
you are using Electronic Funds Transfer, you will receive an
automatic deposit to your bank account and an email notifying
you of the deposit. |
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15. |
SCAC will provide entities
Address updates from the DOR tax return system in January.
We will send you data files and reports showing differences
between the DOR system and the SCAC system. Please update your
data as necessary. |
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All notices and
forms mentioned above should be sent to: Melinda Suddes,
South Carolina Association of Counties, P.O. Box 8207,
Columbia, SC 29202-8207. If you have questions, please
contact Melinda at 1-800-922-6081 or email her at melinda@scac.state.sc.us.
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