SUNBURY – About $1.3 million worth of restitution, fines and court costs have been collected in Northumberland County, but there is still a long way to go.
The Cost Collections Task Force has been taking a proactive approach to get the money, especially what is owed to victims, says Chief of Probation Jim Cortelyou, “Most of the money we are collecting is restitution; I would say three-quarters of it. The more we have, the more we can collect, the more we are helping people. That is what it is really for. While it does help the county to collect, and some of the money goes to the state, our real goal is the restitution for all the victims in Northumberland County.”
Cortelyou says out of the $22 million owed, about $19 million is restitution. The task force has been hitting the streets, knocking on doors and making phone calls to collect the money.
Prothonotary Justin Dunkelberger says they have been reaching out to the public as well, “Some of the best enforcement tools are the public. They can call our office, tell our officers and tell our probation people where they have seen people that may owe money. Some of the people that we have caught that owed the most amount of money were actually tips from the public.”
Dunkelberger, Cortelyou and Northumberland County Sheriff Robert Wolfe were on WKOK Sunrise Tuesday talking about collections in the county. You can download the segment here. For more information on collections, you can go to northumberlandco.org or call 570-495-2339. (Sara Bartlett)