A district attorney’s office division that has operating for almost 44 years may be declining in relevance.
As payments steer more electronic, the Bad Check Unit — serving Lowndes, Clay, Noxubee and Oktibbeha counties — has seen fewer bad check cases, according to circuit court officials in the 16th district.
Circuit Judge Jim Kitchens said he has seen a large decline in bad check, or felony false pretense, cases over his 14 years on the bench. If things keep going as they are, he said the unit may find it increasingly difficult to make payroll.
“There’s technology now that’s kind of making the worthless check unit go the way of the dinosaurs,” Kitchens said.
District Attorney Scott Colom, however, defended the unit’s viability.
Colom said the District 16 Bad Check Unit receives roughly $40,000 per year, with $35,000 paying the unit’s lone regular employee, Sophia Erby, and the rest covering miscellaneous expenses. Erby, who also works with other units in the DA’s office, said Bad Check collected about $13,690 in processing fees over the past year from when bad checks are paid off. The unit collected on checks totaling more than $45,000 in that time.
“I would say [the department is] still useful to the extent employees have additional job responsibilities,” Colom said.
Funding for the Bad Check Unit primarily comes from the boards of supervisors of the counties the unit serves. Oktibbeha County has a specific line item in its budget for the Bad Check Unit, while Lowndes, Noxubee and Clay include that funding in their general budgets and allocate for the unit’s office expenses.
Bad check units, authorized by the Mississippi legislature in 1972, protect merchants by allowing them to pursue restitution for checks charged to closed accounts or accounts with insufficient funds. Before a business files a complaint with the DA’s office, it sends a notice to the writer of the bad check. The DA may pursue the bad check writer on behalf of the vendor only after the bad check writer declines to respond to the business’ notice and the business files a complaint.
“[The unit] is a good thing for all involved because a person has to work pretty hard for the DA to get involved,” Kitchens said.
District 16 created a Bad Check Unit shortly after the 1972 authorization.
Check acceptance
Some Columbus businesses, such as Tutti Frutti and Dirt Cheap, do not accept checks, as they are not as easy to process as cards or cash.
Dirt Cheap assistant manager Lakendra Montgomery said the chain accepted checks in the past but does not anymore.
“I think [we stopped accepting checks] because there was a problem with a lot of checks being returned,” Montgomery said.
Other local businesses may only accept checks from regular customers or people they know.
“We won’t take a check from anybody we don’t know because I’ve been burned too many times,” said Zachary’s owner Doug Pellum.
National trends in payment types reflect the Golden Triangle area’s decreasing reliance on checks.
The 2013 Federal Reserves Payments Study shows an inverse relationship between check use and debit card use. The number of check payments decreased each year since 2003 and debit card use rose steadily.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 36 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.