More and more Warsaw area residents are turning to a free service to sort out severe personal finance problems.

And the man they're turning to is Dan Walcott, the unofficial minister of finance.

Walcott is a counselor for Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Northeastern Indiana, a nonprofit organization with a satellite office in Warsaw.

The service is free and available to anyone who's having trouble managing personal finances and willing to make a change in their lives.

For many, the service is a last ditch option before bankruptcy.

"It's a marvelous program," said Walcott, an ordained minister who took an early retirement from Zimmer where he worked for 12 years and at one point served as director of corporate finance.

"The church views this as a ministry, but I don't provide any religious consultation. I think I'm pretty good at reading people," he said.

Reading people, understanding their plight and pointing them in the right direction - sometimes subtly - is a big part of his job.

"I learned this the hard way, but every client has at least one or two hot buttons, and if you start messing with that, you're going to put up a wall. That's why I don't make suggestions unless they ask me to."

Walcott has an active client list of 130 families - a 30 percent increase since June when Walcott became a full-time counselor.

In many instances, his chief goal is to help families avoid bankruptcy.

Clients come from all walks of life. Most are in their 30s. They include factory workers, professionals, executives and occasionally, homeless people.

Some of the clients' problems can be traced to substance and alcohol abuse, but the real culprit is plastic.

"The main issue is how easy credit cards are to get," Walcott said. "It's very addicting and very, very incidious and subtle in our society," Walcott said.

"It's ludicrous what is possible to do if people don't understand the effects" of credit cards, he said.

With each client, Walcott spends his initial time assessing the level of debt and establishing a budget.

About one third of his clients are placed in a debt management program in which debts are consolidated and payments to creditors are made through the agency.

Other clients are encouraged to make changes that will enable them to reduce their debt.

That often includes some tough decisions involving expenses and revenues. Clients are often left with a choice: cut expenses or increse revenues by possibly getting another job.

"They can't just continue the same old patterns," Walcott said. "Some come in with the idea that we can just fix their problems. We can't. They've got to fix their own problems."

He also serves as a liason. In one case, he was able to get a repossessed car back for a client. In another, he put off payment to one creditor in order to get a family's heat turned on.

Resolving financial problems can often ease marital tensions.

"The No. 1 cause of divorce today is too much debt," Walcott said.

When working with couples, he counsels both spouses.

"They're under a lot of stress. They come in here and they're extremely angry. They're getting phone calls at work by creditors who are trying to get paid. Their lives are not very pleasant... We try to relax the client if they do need to vent their anger."

Consumer Credit Counseling Service is supported locally by those who benefit from the program: Banks, hospitals, attorneys and collection agencies, some of which are included in a local advisory board that works with Consumer Credit Counseling.

The agency has office hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays. To learn more about the program, call 1-800-432-0420. [[In-content Ad]]