LEGISLATIVE BUDGET BOARD Austin, Texas FISCAL NOTE, 77th Regular Session March 26, 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 an excess contributions fund in each of those counties.), As Introduced ************************************************************************** * No fiscal implication to the State is anticipated. * ************************************************************************** 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 excess 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. 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 excess 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 excess 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 excess funds available. Source Agencies: 212 Office of Court Administration, 304 Comptroller of Public Accounts LBB Staff: JK, TB, DB