First Dallas County Felony Collections Workshop a Success

The first multi-county collections work shop, held Wednesday, October 8, 2008 at Dallas County’s Frank Crowley Criminal Courts Building, generated strong interest and participation from neighboring counties, as well as numerous Dallas County collections divisions. Those attending included staff from Denton, Tarrant, Collin, Ellis, Johnson, Brazos, Cooke and Kaufman counties. Among Dallas County divisions, participants comprised staff from several Justice of the Peace precincts, District Clerk Juvenile Collections, District Clerk Trust Collections, and County Clerk Misdemeanor Collections.

This group of governmental collection officers, managers and support staff were instructed by Melissa Williamson, DFW Regional Collections Specialist with the Office of Court Administration. Training focused primarily on delinquent calling and usage of scripts. “Finely tuned scripts are an important part of a sound strategy for increasing staff production, maintaining quality assurance and providing staff with greater self-confidence when dealing with people who don’t want to make their payments,” said Debra Parker, host of the event and head of Dallas County Felony Collections.

The workshop also informed those in attendance about the upcoming inaugural State Comptroller audits to measure compliance with Article 103.0033 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which establishes all model-program standards specifically defined by the Office of Court Administration.

This event to help regional Counties enhance their collection programs will be held annually, with even more counties invited to participate in the future. Dallas County Felony Collections Department’s goal is to provide a forum in which governmental collectors can establish productive contacts, discuss mutual problems and receive the latest information about techniques, technology and legislative issues.

Collections managers can e-mail Debra Parker at DLParker@dallascounty.org to receive additional information or to be placed on the invitation list for the next collections workshop.

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