News in Numbers

Parking ticket payment online

The city of Springfield has unveiled its pilot effort in e-commerce. People can now pay $10 parking tickets online using a credit card. This service is being offered as a convenience to citizens, and is considered the first step in offering other government financial transactions online, according to a release from the city. The city's home page address is http://springfield. missouri.org, and the specific link to the page where parking tickets are paid is www.ci.springfield.mo.us/parking.

The site is fully secured with encryption of the credit card number. Confirmation of payment is sent online to the user, the release states.

Parking tickets were chosen for this first project in a cooperative arrangement with Springfield Municipal Court. Traditional means of payment, including mailing payment in, will still be accepted.

Life, health insurers suffer decline

The nation's life and health insurers suffered a 50 percent decline in realized capital gains a total of $1.8 billion in the first nine months of 1999, according to a Feb. 22 release from Weiss Ratings Inc.

In contrast, Weiss reported, the industry's profits from its core business underwriting increased by 4.6 percent, or $1.6 billion, in the same period. Combining both capital gains and underwriting, the industry's overall profits declined $200 million, or 1.5 percent.

"If interest rates continue to rise, it's going to be more difficult for insurers to take profits on their bond portfolios. In that scenario, we should anticipate further declines in the industry's net profits," said Weiss Ratings Chairman Martin D. Weiss, PhD, in the release.

Holdings of surplus notes, a unique form of subordinated debt treated as capital, were up nearly $2 billion, or 18 percent, as of Sept. 30, 1999, compared to the same period in 1998. At the same time, total capital rose 4.5 percent, to $202 billion from $194 billion in 1998. As a result, surplus notes represented 6.1 percent of total capital, up from 5.4 percent in 1998.

"Surplus notes are a gimmick commonly used in the industry to artificially boost capital, and companies that rely on it too heavily are weaker than they might appear to be," Weiss said.

Large companies with the highest percentage of surplus notes include Liberty National Life Insurance Company with 78 percent of its capital comprised of surplus notes; London Pacific Life and Annuity, with 25 percent; and American Life Insurance Company, with 24 percent.

Former bank teller pleads guilty

A former lead teller for Commerce Bank in Lebanon pleaded guilty March 29 to a federal charge related to her theft of $33,000 from the bank, according to a press release from Steve Hill, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri.

Jeana B. Pollock, 41, of Lebanon, waived indictment and pleaded guilty to one count of theft of funds from a federally insured bank in a March 29 appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge James C. England in Springfield.

Pollock, who began her career at Commerce Bank in the late 1970s, was terminated from her position as lead teller for the bank's branch facility at 224 W. Commercial St. in Lebanon June 10, 1999, according to prosecutor Douglas C. Bunch, assistant U.S. attorney.

By her guilty plea, Pollock admitted that she stole $33,000 from the bank through a series of transactions from 1998 to June 7, 1999, Bunch said in the release. Pollock issued to herself a series of bank money orders and official bank checks that she had not paid for. She also made several entries into bank records to amend charges for insufficient checks that had been assessed to her personal account.

Pollock paid restitution of $33,000 in December 1999, Bunch said. Now free on bond, Pollock could be subject to a maximum punishment of 10 years in prison without parole and $250,000 in fines.

U.S. Chamber supports stock options

The United States Chamber of Commerce announced March 29 that it has called on Congress to protect workers' benefits and amend the Fair Labor Standards Act to exclude income from stock option programs from hourly employees' pay calculations.

"As the nation's labor shortage intensifies, stock options are becoming an increasingly critical tool for companies to attract and retain good workers and a popular employee incentive to increase worker productivity," said Bruce Josten, chamber executive vice president, in a press release.

"The only way to ensure that employers will continue to offer and hourly workers will continue to enjoy these benefit programs is for Congress to pass legislation to exempt them from base pay calculations," he added.

The Department of Labor and members of Congress have agreed to protect the stock option benefit, after concerns were raised when a Department of Labor advisory letter suggested stock options were to be used for overtime pay calculations.

Without legislation, the chamber argued, employers would be forced to engage in a complex recalculation of overtime pay or would decline to offer stock options to hourly employees.