The city of Warrenton has formally given up on collecting $12,500 from dozens of out-of-date utility bills, service fees and property tax bills. The Warrenton Board of Aldermen last week voted to approve the write offs for the uncollected debts, some of which have been on the books for more than 20 years. A write-off essentially means the city has accepted the loss of those funds, allowing the outstanding debts to be removed from future accounting.

There are a number of reasons a city would choose to write off bad debts, Warrenton finance officer Dana Belaska explained during a Feb. 1 board of aldermen meeting. The person responsible for the bill may be deceased, or declared bankruptcy, or left town with no way to contact them. Other debts are so small they don’t meet minimum amount requirements from debt collection agencies, Belaska said.
“There aren’t really any options for collections on those,” Belaska said. She explained that city staff have spent several months compiling a report of such bills so they can be formally addressed, cleaning up the city’s accounting.
The debts being written off break down into three main categories: over $6,200 in unpaid utility bills; $3,100 in uncollected real estate property taxes; and $3,100 in unpaid miscellaneous service charges or penalties.
Some of the oldest unpaid accounts date back to 2001 and prior, when the city office performed its own property tax collections, Belaska explained. The $3,100 in taxes owed from that time are split between 34 accounts. Most of the properties that were taxed are no longer owned by the same person.
“These bills are 20 years old or older. ... At some point it’s time to clean up those records and move on,” Belaska said.
The utility bills being written off date from as early as 2000 to as recent as 2021. There are 52 accounts being cleared, owing as little as $10 and as much as $1,696.
The most colorful list of debts being dismissed are the $3,100 in miscellaneous fees. Over one-third of that amount, $1,300, is from charges to a single person, a former city employee who owed money for his city uniforms after his job was terminated. The rest of the charges are relatively small amounts, mostly from city responses to “false alarm” emergency calls and mowing of unkept properties.
About $950 in miscellaneous charges were from false alarm calls dating back as early as 2003 and late as 2014. $711 is for property mowing between 2004 and 2009.
Seven miscellaneous fees were charged to Warrenton businesses that no longer exist, including The Gap, Main Street Coffee, Sears Garage Door, Shooters & Shots, World Of Videos, and Knappy’s Sports.
For almost all the unpaid miscellaneous charges, city staff no longer have any way to contact the resident or business to collect their fee. The only exception is a current resident owing $75 for a 2013 false alarm call, who was sent a bill in May 2021.
“She called and stated this was from eight years ago and does not believe it is fair to try and collect now,” the write-off report states.