LEGISLATIVE BUDGET BOARD
                              Austin, Texas
                                     
                    FISCAL NOTE, 77th Regular Session
  
                              March 28, 2001
  
  
          TO:  Honorable Senfronia Thompson, Chair, House Committee on
               Judicial Affairs
  
        FROM:  John Keel, Director, Legislative Budget Board
  
       IN RE:  HB1220  by Hartnett (Relating to payments made to certain
               counties from the judicial fund and to the creation and
               use of a contributions fund in each of those counties.),
               Committee Report 1st House, Substituted
  
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*  No fiscal implication to the State is anticipated.                    *
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Local Government Impact
  
The bill would require contributions to the judicial fund from statutory
probate courts, in excess of amounts deposited from constitutional
courts, to be sent to the county treasurer for deposit into a special
fund.  The fund would be called the contributions fund and would be used
only for court-related purposes in support of statutory probate courts in
the county. The county would not be allowed to reduce current levels of
funding to the statutory probate courts because of the availability of
these other funds.  The bill would also require any funds that had been
paid to a county under Sections 25.00211 and 25.00212, Government Code,
on or after October 1, 1999 and still on deposit in the county, to be
transferred to the new contributions fund.  

Current law requires that the excess funds from the judicial fund are
paid to the county's general revenue fund to be used for court-related
purposes for the support of the judiciary county-wide.

Restricting use of the contributions fund to probate courts only would
reduce the amount of funding available to other courts in the county.
Seven counties currently participate in the statutory probate judicial
fund program. The Comptroller of Public Accounts contacted four of the
seven and was told that under the provisions of the bill the
constitutional county courts would lose $50,000 annually in Tarrant
County, $118,000 annually in Bexar County, and $120,000 annually in
Dallas County. Galveston County identified an additional expense of
$5,400 annually for staff time to administer the new fund.

While the same amount of money would be received by the county from the
judicial fund, allocating those funds to only the probate courts could
result in an overall loss to the county if the county must fund the
county courts at the same levels they would have been funded had the
funds been distributed to the judiciary county-wide.

Amounts of the positive fiscal impact to probate courts and negative
fiscal impact to county courts, which could result in a net loss to the
counties, would vary by county based on the amount of funds available.
  
  
Source Agencies:   304   Comptroller of Public Accounts
LBB Staff:         JK, TB