Driver amnesty program cost courts millions, report claims

A recent criminal fine and fee amnesty program cost state courts millions of dollars, according to a new report from the Judicial Council.

The report on the statewide amnesty program was sent to the Legislature on Wednesday. It details the results of a program to let low-income drivers pay off fines and fees at discounted rates. It ran from October 2015 to this April.

“Very little outstanding debt was paid with amnesty, at a significant cost in revenue to trial court operations,” the report found.

The report will likely continue to divide those seeking more funding for courts and advocates who have been pushing to reduce the financial burden of traffic fines and fees on indigent drivers.

On the positive side, 246,300 Californians were able to regain driving privileges, the report said.

But financially, the report argues, the program was a failure. It found that the state’s 58 county collection programs took in more than $45 million in previously uncollected debt.

Nearly a third of this amount, $13.5 million, was eaten up by the administrative costs of running this program. Net revenue collected was just over $31.5 million. The program ran at a net loss in six counties, including two where it lost more than $100,000.

Worse, the report claims that overall collections went down sharply when the amnesty program went into effect.

“Concurrent with the start of the amnesty program in October 2015, criminal revenues, including court operations and court construction funding, declined steeply in 2015–16 and 2016–17 totaling approximately $131.8 million in revenue losses based on current revenue projections,” the report concluded.

The leading proponent of the traffic amnesty program in the Legislature, Sen. Robert Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, said that in his view, the report showed the program was “a tremendous success.”

“Amnesty had a huge positive impact on the lives of a quarter million Californians, who were able to reduce their debts and recover their driver’s licenses,” Hertzberg said in an emailed statement. “In addition, the court system collected $31 million in net revenue, money the courts almost certainly never would have seen without this program.”

The amnesty program was written into SB 85, a 2015 public safety budget trailer bill, which called for the Judicial Council to complete the one-time report on the results as well.

Hertzberg carried a bill last year, SB 881, that would have stopped courts from rescinding licenses because of unpaid fines. The measure was significantly weakened due to Judicial Council opposition, but a provision added to a budget bill this year mandates that courts stop taking licenses due to a claimed inability to pay.

He is also carrying a current bill, SB 185, that would demand courts reduce fines for indigent defendants.

The judicial branch receives 40 percent of criminal revenue collections, though the amount of money collected has been slowly falling for years for a variety of reasons.

However, a pair of funds the judicial branch relies on for court operations and construction were particularly hard hit.

The State Court Facilities Construction Fund provides money for capital expenses, operations and facility modifications. The fund suffered a 4.7 percent annual decline in the four years before the program went into effect.

That jumped to 14 percent in 2015-16, the first year of the program, and almost 34 percent in 2016-17. Other funds supported by fines and fees suffered similar losses.

The report also found that most people eligible for the program did not take advantage of it, and argued that it showed that at least in some cases “the likelihood of collection does not warrant the expense.”

“Counties and courts may wish to consider discharging the $2.57 billion in uncollected delinquent debt since the 18-month amnesty program only reduced total outstanding debt by 1.7 percent,” the report found.