(a) State Setoff. – To recover the costs incurred by the Department in collecting debts under this Chapter, a collection assistance fee of five dollars ($5.00) is imposed on each debt collected through setoff. The Department must collect this fee as part of the debt and retain it. The collection assistance fee shall not be added to child support debts or collected as part of child support debts. Instead, the Department shall retain from collections under Division II of Article 4 of Chapter 105 of the N.C. Gen. Stat. the cost of collecting child support debts under this Chapter.

(b) Repealed by Session Laws 2001-380, s. 3, effective November 1, 2001.

(c) Local Debts. – To recover the costs incurred by local agencies in submitting debts for collection under this Chapter, a local collection assistance fee of fifteen dollars ($15.00) is imposed on each local agency debt submitted under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 105A-3(b1) and collected through setoff. The Department must collect this fee as part of the debt and remit it to the clearinghouse that submitted the debt. The local collection assistance fee does not apply to child support debts.

(d) Priority. – If the Department is able to collect only part of a debt through setoff, the collection assistance fee provided in subsection (a) of this section has priority over the local collection assistance fee and over the remainder of the debt. The local collection assistance fee has priority over the remainder of the debt. (1979, c. 801, s. 94; 1989 (Reg. Sess., 1990), c. 946, s. 3; 1995, c. 360, s. 4(a); 1997-490, s. 1; 2000-126, s. 6; 2001-380, s. 3; 2002-156, s. 5(c); 2004-21, s. 1.)