HBA-KDB H.B. 1220 77(R)BILL ANALYSIS


Office of House Bill AnalysisH.B. 1220
By: Hartnett
Judicial Affairs
7/16/2001
Enrolled



BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE 

Prior to the 77th Legislature, a clerk of a statutory probate court was
required to collect a $40 filing fee paid by the litigants in each probate,
guardianship, mental health, or civil case filed in the court in counties
whose commissioners courts had authorized the fee.  For each county that
collected this fee, the state was required to annually compensate the
county in an amount equal to $40,000 for each statutory probate court judge
in the county.  At the end of the year, the state returned additional
amounts to the counties on a proportional basis.   That excess amount was
paid to a county's general fund with the limitation that the excess amount
could be used only for court-related purposes for the support of the
judiciary.  The intent of creating the $40 filing fee may have been to
provide additional funding, above and beyond that already earmarked by the
commissioners court, to support the operations of the statutory probate
courts exclusively.  Some counties  may have decreased general fund
expenditures that were historically allocated in the county budget for the
support of the statutory probate courts and used the excess amount from the
$40 filing fee to make up the shortfall.  In addition, a county could have
relied upon the statute's language "for the support of the judiciary" to
justify the county's use of the filing fee generated by the statutory
probate court for the support of other courts in the county. House Bill
1220 requires the $40 filing fee to be paid into a contributions fund in a
county treasury, rather than a county's general fund, and provides that the
money in the fund is to be used only for court-related purposes for the
support of the statutory probate courts in a county.  

RULEMAKING AUTHORITY

It is the opinion of the Office of House Bill Analysis that this bill does
not expressly delegate any additional rulemaking authority to a state
officer, department, agency, or institution. 

ANALYSIS

House Bill 1220 amends the Government Code to  create a contributions fund
in the county treasury of each county that collects the additional $40 fee
in certain statutory probate courts.  The bill authorizes the money in a
contributions fund to be used only for court-related purposes for the
support of the statutory probate courts in the county.  The bill prohibits
a county from reducing the amount of funds provided for the support of the
statutory probate courts in the county because of the availability of funds
from the county's contributions fund. 

The bill requires the amounts remitted to the counties by the state after
the state has compensated the judicial fund  to be paid to the county
treasury for deposit in the contributions fund.  The bill deletes the
provision that requires the remitted amount to be paid to the county's
general fund to be used only for court-related purposes for the support of
the judiciary. 

The bill requires the amount of $40,000 that the state annually compensates
a county that collects an additional $40 filing fee for each statutory
probate court judge to be paid to the county treasury for deposit in the
contributions fund, rather than the county's salary fund. 

The bill provides that any amount that was paid to a county's salary fund
or to a county's general fund, on  or after October 1, 1999, and before the
effective date of the Act and that is on deposit in the respective fund on
the effective date of the Act is required to be transferred to the county's
contributions fund. 

EFFECTIVE DATE

June 17, 2001.