Process Serving Will Be Privatized Time And Trouble Not Worth It For The Sheriff’S Department

Kootenai County sheriff’s Sgt. Steve Stenersen marched to the front door of an attractive home in west Coeur d’Alene and knocked.

As neighbors stared from across the street, the man who answered the door told Stenersen the woman he was looking for no longer lived there.

Stenersen climbed back into his car and tossed the court documents on the dashboard, onto a growing pile of failed attempts to track people down.

The woman is being sued in small claims court over an unpaid loan of $2,463. It might take Stenersen five or six tries to track her down, for which the Sheriff’s Department charges $20.

Situations like this are the primary reason why the Sheriff’s Department is planning to privatize some of its process serving. The sheriff is required by law to serve some legal documents, such as property seizures and wage garnishments.

But other documents, such as those dealing with small claims, can be served by almost anyone.

The department will make the transition Aug. 1, said Capt. Ben Wolfinger, who added that a list of private process servers is being compiled for distribution to the public.

By privatizing some of the process serving, Wolfinger said, staffing levels in the civil department would be adequate.

“We’re looking at adding one or two (deputies) now, and we wouldn’t have to do that,” Wolfinger said.

Five full-time deputies currently spend all their time serving process papers all over the county. Four full-time clerks back them up by handling the paperwork.

Their time is maxed out, said Stenersen, who heads the division. Deputies in his division start their days at 6 a.m., trying to get a jump on people who frequently don’t want to be found.

“We might go back six to eight times on a subpoena before you catch somebody,” Stenersen said. Flipping through a stack of papers 40 deep, he added, “We’re working on court dates right now for next week.

“We’ve got literally hundreds of other papers we haven’t even started,” he said.

Although privatizing should save some taxpayer money, it might cost the people suing each other more. The sheriff’s department is required by law to charge only $20 to serve process papers, no matter how many times it takes to find someone.

Some private servers charge more.

“I charge $30 plus mileage,” said Steve Reed, of AAYS Professional Investigative Service. Mileage is 50 cents per mile. And, if Reed can’t find someone on the first try, the fee goes up to $40 per hour, which is what he charges to track someone down.

Kootenai County came up with the idea to privatize from the Ada County Sheriff’s Department. That department privatized some of its process serving in September.

“We just tried to cut off all those areas where we weren’t required to serve those documents,” said Monte MacConnell, legal advisor to the Ada County Sheriff’s Department.

“We’ve received no complaints. It’s brought the civil process load to a more manageable level.”