Enforcement of Monetary Sanctions Imposed by the Courts: Statewide Collection Programs

Effective Practice

Effective practices in statewide collection programs take the form of support and coordination of local collections.  The characteristics of effective statewide practices are:

• Setting statewide policy on collection

• Creating and funding collection management mechanisms at the state level

• Clearly fixing management responsibility for collections

• Establishing a common collections approach among courts

• Establishing an accounts receivable information system with account aging data

• Establishing collections goals and measuring achievement

• Setting statewide procedures that effectuate court policy and statutory requirements

• Providing technical assistance to local courts, including qualification and possibly selection of collection agencies

• Assisting local courts with state-level intercepts

• If feasible, collecting fines in routine traffic cases through a central violations bureau

Issues

1. Should the state supreme court or a judicial council involve the judiciary in a major collection effort and possibly foster the view that courts should use their judgments to generate revenue to offset their expenditures?

2. Should state-level involvement in collections vary as between a primarily state-funded court system and a primarily county-funded court system?

3. Assuming that a state-level commitment to collections is made, should the state attempt to set a uniform policy or provide a lot of local discretion to allow for differences in local philosophy, court size, and economics?

4. Are state central violations bureaus feasible and cost-beneficial anywhere other than in a small compact state, and even there?       

Implementation

Involvement of state-level judicial entities in the collection of monetary sanctions started in embryonic form when states started to finance trial courts.  By the early 1980s, a number of state administrative offices of courts had developed statewide collection and accounting procedures governing collection and dissemination of fines, fees, court costs, and restitution.  Rarely did the early efforts deal with the effectiveness of collection or include gathering information on the subject.  In the late 1980s and early 1990s, at a time of recession, courts became more concerned with the success of collection efforts and assumed a more active role in assisting trial courts to improve their practices.  This assistance varied from full-scale involvement through creation of state collection office (Colorado) to a more modest role of providing guidelines and technical assistance, particularly in dealing with contractors or setting up state intercepts. Arizona, a largely county-funded court system, has actively supported collection efforts through detailed guidelines and qualification of contractors who provide collection services.  Maine introduced one of the first statewide accounts receivable systems with aging data.

Some states concerned themselves with improving the efficiency of collection and placed collection of routine traffic fines under a state office.

History of Use/Replication

In the mid-eighties, the Colorado judiciary became concerned over the number of unpaid fines.  In 1985, a task force on collections recommended that the most effective way to improve fines collection was to put resources into the front-end of the process.  Pilot programs were successful, so that in 1988 the legislature funded a number of collection investigator positions.  The program is a responsibility of the administrative office of courts which provides planning, procedures, training, technical assistance, budgeting, and program development for revenue collection.  There are 62 FTEs allocated for collections investigators who are located in each of the states 22 judicial districts, except for 2 at the state level.  Larger districts have a staff.  They interview everyone who cannot pay a fine or make restitution on the day of sentencing, screen for ability to pay and make up a payment plan.  They track each case and do follow-up on delinquency.  Cases where collection efforts reach a dead end are referred to contractors in some districts, as contractors are more skilled at skip tracing and locating persons across state lines.  There is a 10%-30% success rate for the dead cases that are sent to contractors.  The collection program deals with felonies as well as traffic and misdemeanor cases and emphasizes restitution and victim payments.  The collection investigators work closely with probation officers.  Collection investigators can use the state executive branch for tax intercepts.  The program relieves judges of an administrative routine and increases the rate of collection and provides an illustrative management framework for collection.  The program is well-established but has not been replicated.

Judicial branch central violations bureaus are used in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont and Maine for routine offenses where the defendant has the option to admit and pay by mail.  This is often accompanied by decriminalization of many less serious offenses.   Missouri has recently established a similar system, indicating its utility in a geographically large and diverse state.  The New England programs are well-established and have reduced the clerical costs at the trial court level; permitted more efficient use of employees in the central bureau, increased ability to cope with changing pattern of ticket issuance by law enforcement agencies, improved ability to implement a uniform policy for handling petty violations, facilitated uniform accounting and controls, expedited flow of information to other agencies, and created information technology efficiencies.   The collection rate is usually higher than that of trial courts (in Maine in runs close to 90%) because the principal priority of the bureau is collections.

Evaluations

The Colorado collections system underwent two evaluations, an initial evaluation based upon pilot projects in three counties and a later evaluation (1988) that was based on comparison of collections before and after the introduction of the state collection system.  Four locations were used for the test.

Contacts

Paul Litschewski, Financial Programs Manager, Colorado Administrative Office of the Courts, (303) 837-3628

Robert Tobin, National Center for State Courts, (703) 841-5603

Sandra Carroll, Manager, Maine Judicial Branch Violations Bureau, (207)783-5422

Sherry Antonacci, Director, Centralized Court Services, Connecticut Judicial Branch, (860) 529-9632

Further Reading

Landrum, Michael C., Collecting Fines and Fees: from Concept to Reality, Williamsburg, Virginia:  National Center for State Courts, Court Services Division, 1995.

Matthias, John T, Lyford, Gwendolyn H, , Gomez, Paul, Current Practices in Collecting Fines and Fees in State Courts,  Williamsburg, Virginia: National Center for State Courts, Court Services Division, 1995.

National Center for State Courts, Collecting Fines and Fees, Williamsburg, Virginia: Institute for Court Management, 1996.

Raaen, Nial.  The State as a Collection Agency: An Analysis of the Michigan Treasury Intercept Program, Court Manager, Winter 1996, Volume 11, Number 1.

Thomas, J et al., Enhancing the Collection of Fines and Fees in Mecklenberg County, North Carolina, Williamsburg, Virginia:  National Center for State Courts, 1995.

Tobin, R., Internal Control of Court-Collected Funds, National Center for State Courts (1995).