New Information from NYPPSA in the ongoing Negotiations with NYC DCA

This expert has been sent out by thew NYPPSA Administration:

To All Members:
On May 12 2011 the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs, heretofore referred to as the DCA published amendments to the current rules regarding Digital Record Keeping for Licensed Process Servers and Agencies. The hearing for the amendments will take place on June 13th 2011. Concurrently, they also published the rules on the GPS requirements for Licensed Process Servers. The hearing for those rules will also be on June 13th 2011. The purpose of these amendments is to simplify and clarify the record keeping requirements of the previously adopted rules.
The amendments address many but not all of our objections to the Digital Record Keeping. The areas addressed are as follows:

• The Process Server and Agency only has to keep the file date of the Affidavit IF they physically filed it.
• The Process Server will only have to keep the certified rec. # of a certified mailing IF they physically did the certified mailing.
• Changes the time period for keeping the paper records from 7 years to 3 years.
• Process Servers and Agencies will NO longer be mandated to research and report the results of the traverse. They do have to send a request for the result to the opposing party. If that request is fulfilled then the Licensee must forward the results to DCA.
• Process Servers and Agencies no longer are mandated to send all the information to the DCA regarding a service if a traverse hearing has been set. Licensee will still have to notify DCA of the hearing but they only need to supply the case information upon request from DCA.
• The third party option to maintain digital records have been changed so that now they can be generated at time of request as long as the records are kept by a third party where as the records are stored in such a manner that the process server or the agency are not able to edit them.
• If the Process Server or Agency decides to type the records into the DCA mandated spreadsheet the security settings for those have been changed so that the licensee must keep them on a write-once cd or dvd. You must keep a copy of the cd or dvd onsite and offsite.
• It adds a method for licensees to correct typographical errors in or inadvertent omissions from the entry into electronic format of the information contained in the individual process

Negotiations with the City are still ongoing and we have not yet officially endorsed these changes, even though they are parallel to the ones we promoted in our suit. NYSPPSA believes these amendments will help reach our goal in changing the non-sense to sensible and the absurd to common sense. We also believe that these changes represent a fundamental change from the current rules and that it will help Agencies and Process Servers maintain compliance without upending their business practices.

While we see this as a step in the right direction, these amendments fail to change the 24 hour time period to secure the digital records that the city is mandating on both the Process Servers and the Agencies. While it is clear that this mandate fails to recognize our rights as citizens of the United States to participate in religious observance and will completely force a restructuring of many of our business practices they have yet to change this requirement. DCA has also failed to state any benefit that such a restrictive time allotment will have . The amended rules also fails to address our concerns of the DCA’s attempt to extort additional funds from Process Servers that fail to obtain a $10,000.00 bond. The Agency’s requirement to mandate a NON-REFUNDABLE and RECURRING payment of $1,000.00 is not within the confines of the law.

There is still time for us to come to a compromise with the City and we are in discussions with them every day. You can now see for yourself the progress your donations have brought to these rules and the benefit they have on our daily work life. With your continued support we can create a set of rules that we all can agree with. So please if you haven’t donated please do so and if you have donated please donate again.

Simultaneous to our negotiations with the corporate counsel of the City of New York representing the DCA has been continued negotiations with the City Council regarding aspects of the core law. NYSPPSA has not capitulated in any way to any of the City's demands to achieve the current results. Our lawsuit is still pending and will be so as negotiations continue. Our goal is to see this to the end. That is a realistic goal if the financial support of our members continues. As we all can plainly see, our association, along with our wonderful attorneys have prevailed to the benefit of all process servers in the city.

We are still reviewing the GPS proposed rules and at first glance appear not to inflict any burden on licensed agencies. Pursuant to the city law there will be a 60 day moratorium following final adoption of rules by the DCA. More on the GPS will be forthcoming. This hearing on June 132011 supplants the previous scheduled public hearing date of January 27 2011 which was snowed out. As stated before we suggest that no one become obligated to an advertised program or product until the rules are finalized.

Thanks again to all our members for your time and patience through this grueling process. My continued thanks to Co-administrator Rob Gillis whose technical savvy is unmatched and NYSPPSA Treasurer Billy Mlotok whose wisdom and input are invaluable.

Thank you
Larry Yellon.