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State bureau admits Click Camera not behind on premiums

Sale of the company, flawed communications caused confusion at the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation.

By Kristin McAllister

Staff Writer

Saturday, September 16, 2006

— A state agency said flawed communications caused it to erroneously report recently that Click Camera in Dayton owed unpaid workers' compensation premiums.

The Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation no longer lists Click Camera, owned by CCS Acquisition LLC in Cleveland, as owing unpaid premiums and said the company remains in good standing.

Extras

The BWC in June issued a press release naming Click to its list of 57 Ohio companies that owed more than $10,000 in workers' compensation premiums.

However, Click had been sold nine months earlier, on Oct. 10, 2005, by Click parent CCS Holding Co. to CCS Acquisition. It was CCS Holding that was responsible for Click's owed premiums, not new owner CCS Acquisition, according to both companies, as well as state officials.

CCS Acquisition bought the name and assets of CCS Holding, but not its liabilities, which included the owed premiums from July 1, 2005, through Dec. 31, 2005.

According to state filings, the former owners of Click have paid the $15,064 bill in full.

Nancy Smeltzer, BWC spokeswoman, said her agency never received notification of Click's change of ownership and could only act on information already on file.

The BWC forwarded the case to the state attorney general's office to pursue collection of the unpaid premiums, she said.

The problem for the breakdown in communication was two-fold, said Joe Gruenberg, attorney for Click's former owners.

He said the new owners of Click operate out of the former owner's building on North Main Street and that any mailed BWC notifications, "for some reason, never got forwarded to us."

"And when the state secretary gets a name change, that name change isn't transmitted through other state departments," or at least not for some time, he said. "There's a year or so lag time with all (state) departments."

Smeltzer, however, doesn't see it as a state system failure.

"We need the employer of record to let us know if there's a change in anything," she said.

"We all have a certain amount of responsibility in handling our business."

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