After spending three-and-a-half years trying to collect nearly $23,000 from the federal government, the San Diego Association of Governments is giving up.
Last month, SANDAG’s Board of Directors voted unanimously to write off three uncollected invoices sent to the United States Naval Criminal Investigative Service, or NCIS.
The unpaid invoices — which date back to 2016 and 2019 — are for NCIS’s use of the ARJIS regional crime database. The system gives state and federal law enforcement agencies access to crime data collected by local police departments — a service for which the agencies have to pay.
It’s unclear why NCIS had searched ARJIS. SANDAG staff discovered the unpaid bills in December of 2021.
Several factors torpedoed the regional planning agency’s debt collection efforts, according to a June staff report.
For starters, SANDAG did not require NCIS to sign a contract before it searched the ARJIS database. NCIS cited the lack of supporting documentation as one of the reasons it refused to pay when SANDAG asked to collect.
Staff turnover at NCIS has also made it difficult for SANDAG track down the ARJIS arrears.
Considering about a decade has passed since the first unpaid invoice, “recovery of the balances due is no longer considered feasible or cost-effective,” noted the staff report from the June 26 Board of Directors meeting.
Before the vote, Del Mar Councilmember and SANDAG board member Terry Gaasterland asked staff whether there are now processes in place to prevent similar situations in the future.
“ARJIS and accounting have been working together to make sure this does not happen again,” responded Kimberly Trammel, SANDAG’s director of accounting and finance.
The agency now requires ARJIS to enter into formal contracts before rendering services to law enforcement agencies, Trammel added.
SANDAG and NCIS did not respond to questions for this story.
