Fire and finance department officials are making a break with tradition by enlisting the services of a collection agency to help recoup some of the $132,000 owed to the town in outstanding ambulance bills.

In March, Director of Finance Jane Savastano began working with the town’s third-party billing agent Comstar to address what she called “pages and pages” of unpaid ambulance service accounts, some dating back to 2001. She has also put a temporary stop to writing off accounts in an attempt to catch up with large amount of outstanding debt owed to the town.

Coming before the board on Aug. 25, Savastano recommended writing off any account for less than $100 – some of them are for as little as a few cents, she said – and anything prior to 2005.

Unpaid ambulance bills dating from 2005 on would be handed over to a collection agency, in a break from the past. In previous years, those accounts that Comstar had been unable to recoup were presented to the Board of Selectmen to nullify on a monthly basis. Savastano said the write-offs had begun to distort the town’s revenue.

“This is kind of a catch-up time for the last couple of years, trying to write off this old noncollectable debt. Other (boards of selectmen) did not encourage going through collection agencies and with that, (the accounts) just went off on a write-off report,” Savastano said. “Hopefully, we’ll recover some debt. The hope will be to be on top of it once the old billings are cleaned up. It’ll be easier month to month.”

While the board has been supportive of Savastano and Fire Chief Kevin Breen’s move towards using a collection agency to address the loss of those funds, they did express reservations at the just over $76,000 in unpaid invoices the two are asking to be written off before moving forward.

Most of that amount comes from accounts dating back seven or eight years, or from those that only amount to under $100. According to Savastano, collection agencies consider any outstanding bill older than two years not feasible to pursue.

“Only up to two years (serves) as a guideline for the collection agencies,” Savastano said. “That’s really whats feasible and realistic to collect. We can send them everything, but the chances are very slim. As we get caught up, it would be easier, but this is a lot of old garbage sitting out there.”

Salem would continue to work with Comstar in the future – through a process of mailing collection letters to individuals indebted to the town before reporting to the credit companies – to serve as a liaison with a collection agency in the future at no cost to the town.

According to Savastano, for every bill collected by the agency, Salem will see roughly 66 percent of those funds. About 30 percent would remain with the agency as a commission. At the moment, Comstar charges 6.5 percent of the outstanding bill at the time of collection.

On average, use of the town’s ambulance service runs at about $700 a trip, depending on the equipment used and the distance to the hospital, according to Breen. Earlier this week, he stressed to selectmen that the service was not supported by taxes and depended on users to maintain. While some people suffer from financial hardships that might hold them back from reimbursing the town, others chose not to, he said.

“There (is) a large pool of citizens who believe the ambulance services is part of their taxes. We felt it would be appropriate to discuss it publicly before we go forward,” he said on Monday. “Some of the people in Salem get paid (by insurance companies) and chose not to pay their ambulance bill. There’s one thing when there is a hardship, it’s another when you’re receiving the funds and not paying. That’s unacceptable.”