From the President

In order to improve the collection of criminal fines and fees as well as increase the respect for court orders and the judicial system, the Texas Legislature approved Senate Bill 1863 in the 79th Session. As many of you know, the bill requires counties of 50,000 or more to develop and implement a program to improve the collection of criminal fines and fees. This is the first full year for the program to have been in effect.
Because some of the fees go to the state, I’m sure the primary focus of the bill was to improve statewide revenues, but because most of the fine and fee collections stay in their local jurisdictions, the law has had some beneficial effects for counties.
The State Office of Court Administration (OCA) was charged with assisting counties to comply with the program, requiring counties to implement their programs by April 2007 or they would lose all their local fees to the state. The penalty was significant. If Tarrant County hadn’t complied, it would have cost the county in excess of $400,000 annually in our portion of fees.
In Tarrant County, a collaborative effort was initiated to achieve program goals and get buy-in from affected departments and all courts. Our plan is very cost effective, using existing personnel and automated technology to collect from probationers.
In its first year, the plan has resulted in the collection of more than $11 million for district criminal courts, county criminal courts and justice of the peace courts here. Both the district clerk and the county clerk collect attorneys’ fees, fines and court costs, while one justice of the peace court collects money on its own.
Tarrant County Clerk Suzanne Henderson collects more than $6 million in fines and fees for both the county criminal courts and seven justice of the peace courts. District Clerk Tom Wilder collects about $5.2 million