Oregon Department of Revenue asks for 11 positions, $1.9 million to expand collections after new tools boost recoveries

Oregon Department of Revenue collection officials on March 12 told the General Government Subcommittee they want more staff to work an expanding inventory of delinquent accounts and other agencies’ receivables, arguing that newer tools and analytics have improved recoveries.

The collection division’s administrator, Deanna Mack, told lawmakers “for every dollar we bring in, it costs us 6¢ to do that,” and said the agency collected nearly $100,000,000 from accounts it had not been able to resolve earlier after posting a delinquent taxpayer list online.

That list, Mack said, reports taxpayers meeting specified thresholds (the department described the threshold internally as $50,000 or more) and prompted responses from many debtors after the department issued two warning letters ahead of publication. Representative Reschke characterized the effect as the result not only of enforcement but of…