Posted on 03/03/2009 7:10:47 PM PST by NormsRevenge
Los Angeles County has paid private lawyers nearly $13,000 to pursue $1,004 in debt owed by a Compton woman for time her 16-year-old granddaughter was held in a juvenile probation camp, officials acknowledged today.
The debt was still being pursued this week, county counsel said, despite a moratorium on such billing declared last month. The moratorium was called by probation chief Robert Taylor after The Times and children’s advocates raised serious questions about his department’s billing practices.
The disclosure that the county already had spent nearly 13 times the actual debt owed came at today’s Board of Supervisors meeting as Zev Yaroslavsky grilled county counsel about the billing of Sally Stokes.
Her case is scheduled to be considered by a judge Wednesday in Eastlake Juvenile Court in Los Angeles.
Stokes, the legal guardian for her granddaughter, had appealed the county’s order that she pay $25 a month toward the debt. She argued that because she lived on Social Security payments of $1,650 a month, she could not afford the monthly payments. State law allows counties to bill parents and guardians of minors held in juvenile probation camps and halls for each day the child spends in the system, but it prohibits the billing of those too poor to pay.
In Stokes’ case, county probation officials apparently improperly counted toward her income the foster care payments she received for looking after three other grandchildren.
“How did it get this far?” Yaroslavsky asked. “Somebody should have been saying this doesn’t make sense. This grandmother slipped through the cracks of the moratorium.”
(Excerpt) Read more at latimesblogs.latimes.com ...
Sounds right for government work. I just really want them in charge of my health.
The object of making everybody a criminal is to confiscate their money, their property, and eventually their life - in that order.
Imagine what it will cost us to bill Bernie Madoff.
Sounds like the O’bozo nation.
Ha ha ha... they could have just let it go and saved taxpayers $12K. That’s government for ya.
This remimds me of people who go to make a purchase and get suckered into buying something much more expensive when the salesperson dangles a “discount” in front of them. “Look how much money I saved on this!” Um, isn’t what you spent still more than you had planned on?
We need to just think of the $13,000 spent as an “economic stimulus” and then they can spend as much as they want.
In a totalitarian state, the state seeks to have a monopoly on everything - including criminality.
So the goal isn't for you to be a criminal - it is for you to be a victim.
The funniest line of all. Government bureaucrats don't get rewarded for making sure that things make sense--just the opposite, in most cases.
They could have turned this over to a contingency collections firm, rather than an expensive law firm. They could have sold the debt and MADE money, not lose 13x the amount.
This smells of insider deal to me.
Wonder if the guy getting paid for the collection is related to who in county gov and how much they kick back
When you got government involved in the matter of money, this is what happens.
When you got government involved in the matter of money, this is what happens.
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