On January 20, the Worth County Board of Commissioners met for a workshop at the courthouse. The first item on the agenda to be discussed was SPLOST 6. The city clerk of Warwick, Judy Martin, came to get clarification on whether the city or county is responsible for paving roads. According to Commissioner Bettye Bozeman, it is up to the City of Warwick.
The board then went on to discuss the daunting task of getting the delinquent garbage bills under control. Bozeman suggested that from this day forward, if citizens fail to pay their garbage bills, they will be sent to court. Bozeman believes there are several people who owe money that are no longer living in the county, or they are deceased. According to Commissioner Ken Hall, there are 2,740 people that are 30 days past due on their garbage bills and 760 people that are 60 days past due. Hall and Bozeman agreed that it’s time to send the people that are 60 days past due to court. Hall said,
“We’ve got to let the ones that are delinquent know that they have got to pay.”
Hilita Jones claimed that the current way of collecting these delinquencies isn’t effective. According to county attorney, Ralph Powell, the delinquencies can be added on to the property tax. Powell also said using the courts to collect the delinquencies can be difficult and costly.
Bozeman noticed an account that owes $7,558. According to the board, 50 customers owe $29,000 combined. Commissioner Billy McDonald claimed that a major problem is that garbage cans have been set out at houses that may not have anyone living in the residence. Tax Commissioner Tabitha Dupriest brought to the board’s attention that just because a resident passes away doesn’t mean their garbage bills should be written off. Dupriest went on to say that in that situation there could still be people living at that residence. Hilita Jones said,
Pick up the January 28th edition of the Sylvester Local News for the complete story…..