Adams County Supervisors agreed this week to let the justice system take a crack at doing what years of bills haven’t been able to do — get nearly 100 property owners to pay their garbage bills.

County leaders unanimously agreed to take 97 property owners to court in an effort to collect past-due garbage collections fees.

At first that may seem drastic, until you realize the scope of the unpaid fees.

The county says those 97 property owners each owe the county more than $3,500 each in unpaid garbage collection fees.

At the minimum, that’s almost $340,000 the county has been “lending” these people for not paying their bills. Some of the amounts are more than 20 years old.

Thank goodness supervisors are working to clean up this mess. We’ve long contended the county would be wise to do away with its own sanitation department and simply put the amount on property owners via ad valorem millage.

Surely any property owners that truly do not use county garbage collection services could simply petition the tax assessor’s office to make a slight adjustment to eliminate the extra tax fee.

The system of charging garbage fees onto property tax millage is used in other counties and should be considered here.

It would not only eliminate a county department that is no longer necessary, but it would also prevent such collection disasters from coming back.