Senate Bill 2856

AN ACT TO ALLOW CERTAIN MUNICIPALITIES TO ADOPT RULES AND PROCEDURES AUTHORIZING ACCOUNTING SYSTEM ACCOMMODATION OF CERTAIN UNCOLLECTIBLE INDEBTEDNESS OWED BY A CUSTOMER FOR WATER AND SEWER SERVICES; TO AMEND SECTIONS 31-19-27 AND 31-19-29, MISSISSIPPI CODE OF 1972, DEALING WITH DOUBTFUL CLAIMS; AND FOR RELATED PURPOSES.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI:

SECTION 1. (1) A municipality having a population of one hundred fifty thousand (150,000) or more may institute a program to address certain disputed or delinquent water and sewer customer accounts. The municipality must adopt rules and procedures to implement the program if instituted. The municipality's authority to compromise doubtful claims is limited to the following cases:

(a) (i) Instances of error on the part of the municipality such as equipment failure or process failure, but only to the extent the customer did not receive the benefit of the water or sewer service;

(ii) Instances of error not on the part of the customer due to unforeseen circumstance such as damage, extreme weather-related event, declared disaster or emergency, or mandatory evacuation, but only to the extent the customer did not receive the benefit of the water or sewer service; and

(b) Instances where the customer is so disproportionately impoverished or needy that the customer's overdue balance for water and sewer service can be reasonably adjudged to be uncollectible, in which case the municipality may utilize an installment payment agreement to allow the customer additional time to pay a prescribed portion of the outstanding balance, and as part of the installment payment plan, to offer the utilization by the municipality of accounting procedures to move the remaining balance as an uncollectible debt to a special municipal accounting category of uncollectible or inactive accounts as outlined in the program rules if the customer fulfills all terms of the installment plan. The program must provide that the accounting adjustments under this paragraph (b) do not result in forgiveness of uncollectible debts.

(2) The municipality may set program parameters to take into account the principle of collateral estoppel as to its own prior service, billing or collection actions.

SECTION 2. Section 31-19-27, Mississippi Code of 1972, is amended as follows:

31-19-27. A doubtful claim of the state, or of the county, city, town, village, or levee board is one for which judgment has been rendered and for the collection of which the ordinary process of law has been ineffectual; debts due by drainage districts or other taxing districts or sinking funds to counties under the Rehabilitation Act of 1928, being Chapter 88 * * *~~of the~~, Laws of 1928, and Chapter 16 of the Acts of the Special Session of 1931; those debts due counties by drainage districts, which the Reconstruction Finance Corporation has heretofore refused to refinance; those debts due a municipal utility system as authorized under Section 1 of this act; debts due for sixteenth section township school fund loans made to churches, where the board of supervisors finds that the value of the security given therefor is insufficient or inadequate to pay or satisfy the principal and interest of said loan, and when the church repays the principal of said loan; and debts due by counties and townships to drainage districts for drainage district assessments or taxes levied and assessed upon sixteenth section lands.

SECTION 3. Section 31-19-29, Mississippi Code of 1972, is amended as follows:

31-19-29. The Governor, on the advice of the Attorney General or * * * ~~Chairman of the State Tax Commission~~ the Commissioner of Revenue at the State Department of Revenue, may, upon application of the defendant or debtor proposing a compromise, settle and compromise any doubtful claim of the state, or of any county, city, town, or village, or of any levee board against such defendant or debtor, upon such terms as he may deem proper, the board of supervisors in the case of a county, and the municipal authorities in the case of a city, town or village, and the levee board in the case of a claim of a levee board, concurring therein. The Governor, upon application of a drainage district having obligations outstanding to a county under the provisions of Chapter 88, Laws of 1928, and Chapter 16, Laws of the Extraordinary Session of 1931, or obligations which the Reconstruction Finance Corporation has heretofore refused to refinance, may settle and compromise any claim, debt or obligation that said drainage district may owe any county in the State of Mississippi for money loaned said district under the provisions of said Chapter 88, Laws of 1928, or any other claim, debt or obligation that said drainage district may owe the county which the Reconstruction Finance Corporation has heretofore refused to finance, if the board of supervisors of said county concurs in the application of the drainage district. A municipality may compromise a debt owed for water and sewer service only as provided in Section 1 of this act. The Governor, upon application by the board of supervisors for any taxing districts of said county or sinking funds of said county under the control and supervision of said board of supervisors having obligations outstanding and due to said county under the provisions of Chapter 88, Laws of 1928, and Chapter 16, Laws of the Extraordinary Session of 1931, may settle and compromise any claim, debt, or obligation that said taxing districts or sinking funds may owe said county for money loaned said taxing districts or sinking funds under the provisions of said Chapter 88, Laws of 1928; and provided that the Governor, on the advice of the Attorney General, and upon application of a church owing a sixteenth section township school fund loan, may settle and compromise such debt or obligation if the board of supervisors of the said county concurs in the application of the said church. The Governor may, on the advice of the Attorney General, in like manner compromise and settle a claim of a drainage district for unpaid assessments or taxes upon sixteenth section lands upon application of the board of supervisors wherein such sixteenth section is situated, if the commissioners of the drainage district concur therein.

SECTION 4. This act shall take effect and be in force from and after its passage.