Project #2: Department of Labor and Industries (L&I)
Each month, L&I mails approximately 5000 legal documents with explanatory cover letters to Washington employers who are late with payments. Its collections program uses a group of about 25 standard documents for this purpose, which the program felt were unnecessarily complex.
“The Collections program believed that its delinquency cover letters and notices contained legal language that actually obscured the meaning of important instructions and deadlines,” said Plain Talk Lead Dana Botka. “We wanted business owners to be able to quickly absorb and act on these notices. Delays can result in legal problems, higher penalties and even seizure of their business property.”
Also, the program wanted to cut down on the huge amounts of time L&I Revenue Agents were spending on the phone answering routine questions from confused letter recipients. Its staff was convinced that clearer documents would mean more time to work with businesses on paying their overdue accounts. That extra time, management believes, could translate into an increase of between $250,000 and $500,000 in annual collections, reducing the overall tax burden for the on-time customers.
How they will measure
This program collects data regularly as a part of everyday business. Therefore, benchmark measures are already in place. From the benchmark measures, they expect to see:
- An increase in the total delinquent revenue collected (comparing the same months or quarters of each year), reducing costs for on-time payers.
- An increase in the number of businesses that respond to L&I’s first legal notice (Notice and Order of Assessment) -- reducing the percentage of businesses that have to deal with a follow-up court warrant.
- More revenue collected on average for each Notice and Order of Assessment sent to businesses behind in payments.
- An increase in Revenue Agent time available to work with customers due to the fewer steps required each time follow-up action they must take.
- A reduction in late fees paid by businesses who pay late due to paperwork confusion.
- An avoided cost and time savings for each business not receiving a court warrant.
Note: The Plain Talk Collections Letter team conducted usability tests of its first drafts with professionally recruited customers. So it has benchmark information if it decided to test the final documents with customers for better comprehension.
Learn more...
Plain Talk Coordinator, GMAP, Office of the Governor
360-902-5408