Bill Offers New Ways to Collect Court Fines

01/21/08

by Jen Lynds

Bangor Daily News (Maine)

HOULTON, Maine - As an attorney, Rep. Richard Cleary has seen a number of instances where people appear repeatedly before a judge because they are unable to pay a court fine they have been assessed.

With an estimated $3 million in court fines still uncollected in the state, the Houlton lawmaker believes his bill, LD 1938 "An Act To Allow Community Service In Lieu of Fines," would give the court system additional options to collect the money it is owed.

Cleary, a Democrat, represents the District 8 towns of Amity, Hodgdon, Houlton, Orient and Cary Plantation.

Speaking before members of the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee last week, Cleary explained the substance of his bill by outlining a scenario in which a defendant has been sentenced to serve two days in jail and pay a $500 fine. The defendant in the case serves his sentence but can’t immediately pay the fine, so the judge imposes a payment schedule.

The defendant is unable to make the payments and is called back to court. The individual appears, still unable to pay.

The process repeats until the judge has no alternative but to send the nonpaying defendant to jail to "sit off" the fine at a rate of $5 per day, Cleary told committee members.

In Cleary’s scenario, the defendant would spend 100 days sitting in jail to pay off the $500 fine.

The cost of housing an inmate at a county jail, however, is significantly higher than $5 a day. In Aroostook County, for instance, it costs an average of $75 per day.

If the "sit off" plan is used, The County incurs an expense and the state does not collect its $500 fine. The state also picks up the tab for other expenses, such as court time and judge and clerk staff time.

"We have been talking a lot in Augusta about budget shortfalls and how to save money," Cleary noted. "Unpaid fines add up to over $3 million in this state. It does not make fiscal sense to incur the costs of putting a person in jail and then lose out on those dollars, too. Community service provides value to the public rather than costing taxpayer dollars."

Current law provides courts the authority to order community service during sentencing, but Cleary added the law is "unclear about whether or not community service can be ordered after a defendant defaults on payments," the representative explained.

Under Cleary’s bill, the court would have the option of turning to a collection agency to recoup unpaid fines, including an additional amount of money — up to 33 percent of the original fine — to be retained by the collection agency for its work.

Other states, including New York, Virginia and Texas, use collection agencies to recoup court fines.

Cleary said the state court system had tried using a collection agency, but because the collection agency was taking a portion of the fine as a fee, the court was not receiving its full amount of money.

He said adding money to the fine as a surcharge would alleviate the problem.

The lawmaker also said the state could employ other collection methods such as seizing tax refunds and driver’s licenses and placing liens on properties owned by the defendants.

If the defendant proves he or she is unable to pay, the bill also would allow the court to reduce the amount of each payment installment or order the offender to perform a specified number of hours of community service work. If the court determines the fine cannot be collected because of death or disability of the offender, the court could reduce or discharge completely the unpaid balance.

If the bill passes, the procedure currently used would remain in place, but additional options for the court to collect fines would be implemented, according to Cleary.

"We do have a large amount of uncollected fines that perhaps could be a revenue source for the state in the current situation we are in," Cleary told committee members on Wednesday.

Cleary said the impetus for the bill came after conversations he had with judges in Aroostook County.

No one spoke in opposition to Cleary’s bill, and the proposal garnered support from Robert Howe, the executive director of the Maine County Commissioners Association.

"I want to speak in support of this because of the additional options it gives the court," he said. "The cost of housing an inmate is a great deal more than $5 a day.

"Community service also provides a value to the taxpayer, and using a collection agency is a reasonable option now," Howe said. "We think it is a good idea that these additional options be added."

The bill has been scheduled for a work session on Jan. 23 to further explore the issue before the committee makes a recommendation to the full Legislature.