AN ACT to adopt a flat collection assistance fee under the setoff debt collection act.

The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:

SECTION 1.  G.S. 105A‑13(a) reads as rewritten:
"(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 General Statutes the cost of collecting child support debts under this Chapter."
SECTION 2.  This act becomes effective for fees assessed on or after January 1, 2005.
In the General Assembly read three times and ratified this the 15th day of June, 2004.

	s/	 Beverly E. Perdue
	 President of the Senate

	s/	 James B. Black
	 Speaker of the House of Representatives

	s/	 Michael F. Easley
	 Governor

Approved 12:04 p.m. this 25th day of June, 2004