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
  
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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 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