Collecting delinquent garbage bill payments is a battle Jim Thorpe Borough and other municipalities have been fighting for years, but is cutting off service going too far?

That’s one of the questions council debated during its workshop meeting Thursday night as it tries to slice into $81,998 in delinquent funds primarily related to garbage.

“The majority of our delinquent utility funds are garbage related,” Borough Manager Maureen Sterner said.

While the borough can legally tell its hauler to cease collecting garbage at properties where unpaid bills have accumulated, officials said its solicitor, James Nanovic, has been hesitant to recommend such action in the past because of health and sanitary concerns.

“We don’t want people dumping their garbage somewhere or setting it out with their neighbors, which could result in a theft of services charge for them and the neighbor,” Sterner said.

Some of the properties contributing to the delinquent garbage total have nobody living in the residences. Others are not on the borough’s water service so shutting off water is not an option to create incentive.

Should residents who owe money inhabit their home and set out garbage for collection, they could be cited under a municipal ordinance should council decide to go the route of cutting off service.

The borough would give a list of addresses to its contracted hauler, Tamaqua Transfer, Sterner said, and the driver would let the municipality know if one of those properties set their garbage out.

“I wouldn’t shut down garbage,” Mayor Michael Sofranko said. “We’ll have rats and mice all over town and have a bigger problem.”

Instead, Sofranko suggested a different solution; one used by the borough a number of years ago.

“At one time, we published names of the people who were delinquent in their payments in the Times News and the amount they owed,” he said. “I don’t know if we’re still allowed to do that, but it actually worked at the time. It’s not fair to everyone who pays to have a few people not pay and just get away with it.”

The borough does have liens on the affected properties, but it has yielded little in the way of urgency for residents to pay.

“We’re going to stick with the liens and stop sending those accounts to the collection agency because we’re down to the final few property owners who just are not going to pay,” Sterner said.

Borough officials said they also planned to check with Nanovic on the possibility of filing with the personal property clerk in the sheriff’s office, which would allow a deputy to try to levy on a property owner’s personal effects to satisfy the debt.

“If they have a boat or ATV, for example, you can levy on that and there can be a personal property sale,” Jim Thorpe Police Officer Daniel Long, who previously worked for the Carbon County Sheriff’s Office, said.