By SUE ELLEN ROSS

Staff Reporter

RESERVE – Some of the numbers are in and the figures are very impressive.

The St. John Parish school district has gathered in excess of $400,000 more in sales tax (in the first quarter of this school year) compared to last year.

The school system attributes this, in part, to the efforts of the outside tax collection agency they hired this year.

That company, Assured Compliance, Inc., collected $3.25 million in sales tax for the public schools during the months of July, August and September. This is $412,510 more than last year’s total collections after the first quarter.

“Our gains are the result of a mixture of improvements,” said Felix Boughton, St. John Schools finance director. “Much of the credit goes to ACI for the work it is doing to make good on sales taxes that are owed to us.”

He added that St. John Parish levies a 4.75 percent parish-wide sales tax, 2.25 percent of which is earmarked for the public school system.

“In the past, we managed our tax collections in-house, but we weren’t collecting as much as we thought we should be able to,” said the finance director. “That’s when we decided to outsource the job.”

According to the contract, ACI receives 2 percent of all collections as payment for its services. Boughton noted that other parishes utilizing outside tax collections agencies often pay a higher rate. For example., sheriff’s offices that collect taxes for government entities typically charge a 15 percent fee for its service, he added.

Nathan Stein, CEO of ACI, said his company’s target is to improve collections to the point where the (school system’s) contract with his company is a revenue-generating contract. “Ultimately, our target is for the schools to make money on this contract,” he said.

It’s still early yet for total analysis, but the decision to go with an outside firm seems to be working, according to Boughton.

The St. John School Board voted last June to contract with ACI at the beginning of July, 2005, which is when the new fiscal year begins.