Fewer people are writing checks to pay for purchases these days, and that means fewer people are writing bad checks.

Buchanan County Prosecuting Attorney Dwight Scroggins says his office collects most of the checks that are submitted to his office.

“If the merchant gets the check to us within 30 to 45 days of the check having been written, we collect a little over 98% of those checks that are submitted for collection,” Scroggins says.

“Our insufficient-funds check collections for merchants in 2013 was $93,000,” Scroggins says. “In 2014 it’s right at $60,000. That’s been steadily declining for several years, as fewer and fewer checks are put into circulation each year.”

Mr Scroggins also offered collection numbers for delinquent state tax collections, and for the collection of victims’ restitution.

The office collected about $360,000 in restitution last year, which Scroggins says is fairly typical. The $428,000 collected the year before included several large restitution payments.

Mr Scroggins says his office has received fewer referrals from the Missouri Department of Revenue for delinquent tax collection. He says they have cleared most of a backlog of tax cases so the number of referrals has dropped by more than half. But Scroggins says they’ve actually collected a higher percentage of the referrals from the state.

In 2014, the prosecutor’s office collected about $140,000 in delinquent taxes, compared to $277,000 in 2013.