Justice of the Peace Delinquent Fees and Fines

The number of cases filed in Texas criminal courts increases yearly, along with case backlogs and delinquent accounts receivable. Courts need relief from the different tedious jobs in their offices to allow time to work current cases and stop or slow the growth of uncollectible cases.
With the use of collection services, justice of the peace courts have found a way to increase revenue and decrease overhead and delinquent case workload.
“Before Titus County obtained GHS’ collection services, we had a difficult time keeping up with our case load,” said Titus County Justice of the Peace Paula Dyke. “With these new services, it’s as if we have another clerk in our office.”
Some of the tasks JP offices must complete when working with delinquent cases include building delinquent lists, searching through case loads to mail and file a Nonresident Violator Compact (NRVC), and culling through stacks of tickets that need courtesy and pre-warrant notices sent. By incorporating collection services into the office’s daily activities, these tasks have been alleviated.
“With our case load of filing all of the NRVCs, submitting to Omni and sending out courtesy notices was a lot to keep up with,” Dyke said. “Having this service relieves all of this and allows us to stay current with other office duties.”
Not only do collection services alleviate caseload, they increase revenue. In the first quarter of 2007, Hopkins County justice of the peace courts collected almost $106,000 dollars in delinquent fees and fines, up 30.1 percent from 2006.
“We realized that we needed to find a cost conscious way to collect delinquent fines and fees,” said Hopkins County Justice of the Peace Ronny Glossup. “We did, and our collection is up from last year. GHS has been great for our office, and it’s free. We have nothing to lose.”