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University Daily Kansan, January 24, 1983
Writing bad checks can cause fear, panic and more
O'Connell to be home for 10 men
By NED STAFFORD Staff Reporter
By SUSAN STANLEY Staff Reporter
The O'Connell Youth Ranch, originally built as a home for wayward boys, will soon be home to 10 mentally handicapped men.
Fear and panic can be caused by an envelope, especially when the envelope comes from a bank and contains an overdraft notification.
There is a good reason for concern over writing a bad check, Lyn Chase of the Credit Bureau of Lawrence, 363 W. 11th St., said Friday.
Writing a check for insufficient funds has more than just monetary costs, Chase said.
Most students do not realize that in addition to charges from the bank and the business, she said, bounced checks from a credit union. She noted on credit files for seven years.
Students' names may also be placed on a list that makes them unable to write checks at many area businesses, she said.
A PERSON'S credit file is a record of any loans a person has, civil law suits filed against them or any unpaid debts that required collection agency action,
Gary Condra, former director of Cottonwood Corporation, said yester-byn.
A bad credit record makes it difficult for students to get loans and credit
The Kansas Union has $14,000 in bad
checks, said Warner Ferguson, associate director of the Union. The Union will lose between $5,000 to $10,000 by the end of the year because of bad checks.
A 20-cent handing charge for cashing checks helps the Union cushion the effects, he said. Part of the fee allows the Union to keep a ready supply of money for cashing checks despite the uncollected ones.
If a check is returned twice by the bank, he said, Union officials will begin collection action. Students are sent back to school if the check is not for the check plus a $5 service charge.
If a student does not pay the check and the service charge, he said, the student's name goes onto a list. People whose names appear on the Union, he said. A student's name is removed from the list when the check and charges are paid.
THERE ARE ABOUT 1,250 names on the Union's bad-check list, Ferguson said. He said that some names have accumulated over two to three years and that there was little hope of collecting them.
concealing the Wagon Wheel Cafe, 507 W. 14th St., receives its share of bad checks too, said the manager, Mike Ruane. The
checks are sent through the bank twice and then the offenders are called.
"Normally they come in and pay them then, but if they don't, we send somebody out to find 'em," he said.
The Wheel used to post the names of offenders on a list behind the bar, Ruan said, but that method wasn't effective.
BAD CHECK writers at Gibson's Discount Center, 2525 Iowa St., find their names on a list that makes it difficult to write checks in many of the businesses in Lawrence, said Sony Darby, manager of the cash flow management.
"It doesn't make any difference," he said. "Did you bounce checks don't care if their name is up there anyway."
A letter is sent to the check writer and a percent service charge is added to the bill.
If the check is not taken care of after a two-week period, the service charge goes up to 8 percent.
If these measures fail, Darby said, the checks are turned over to a collection agency in Topeka. The names also are turned over to a local bank. The accounts that have had bad checks drawn on them. This list is distributed
to local businesses that subscribe to the service...
According to Kansas Statute 21-3763, writing a bad check for an amount less than $50 is unlawful. Write a bad check for more than $50 constitutes a Class E felony.
HABITUALLY WRITING bad checks is a Class D felony, according to Kansas Statute 21-3708. "Habitually" is defined by the statute as being convicted of bad check writing more than twice in two years.
"A lot of people think that just because this is a college town that students contribute to the large amount of checks that are returned," Chase said. "But Lawrence has people of all ages, bounce checks, not just students."
Most students have problems balancing their checkbooks and don't write bad checks maliciously she said. Chase said that many people are embarrassed with the results.
"It wouldn't be hard to wait on a street corner and grab someone who has spent some time in jail for writing a bad check," she said.
Chase said she had no way of knowing exactly how many checks the agency collected on each year.
ranch's board of directors for use of the ranch until July 31.
The mentally handicapped men range from 40 to 60 years of age.
Contra said that because of their age, the men grew up in a time when programs such as special education did not exist.
The men will participate in recreational activities in the community, Conrada said, and will attend the shelter workshop at Cottonwood Incorporated, a vocational training facility which trains clients for jobs in the community. If they are not able to work in the community, they can work in the shelter workshop.
"THEY ENDED up spending a lot of time at home or in state institutions"
yesterday that Condra would work as a consultant for the board to help it decide the best use for the ranch after his lease expires.
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Rogers, who is also regional field director for the plains region of Youth for Christ USA, said it was the board's goal to open the ranch for use as a facility for young men as soon as possible.
Conda said that parents of many of mentally handicapped people in this age group had died and that the state had reduced the number of mentally handicapped people in state institutions, nursing homes as the only alternative for many.
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He said that nursing homes were better suited for those people needing medical attention, which none of the men needed.
10 West 9th St.
Rusty Rogers, interim administrator for the ranch's board of directors, said
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