| TO: | Honorable Steve Ogden, Chair, Senate Committee on Finance |
| FROM: | John S O'Brien, Director, Legislative Budget Board |
| IN RE: | SB726 by Rodriguez (Relating to the establishment of the judicial access and improvement account to provide funding for basic civil legal services, indigent defense, and judicial technical support through certain county service fees and court costs imposed to fund the account.), As Introduced |
| Fiscal Year | Probable Net Positive/(Negative) Impact to General Revenue Related Funds |
|---|---|
| 2012 | $0 |
| 2013 | $0 |
| 2014 | $0 |
| 2015 | $0 |
| 2016 | $0 |
| Fiscal Year | Probable Revenue Gain from Judicial Access and Improvement Account, New |
Probable (Cost) from Judicial Access and Improvement Account, New |
Probable Revenue Gain from Judicial Fund 573 |
Probable (Cost) from Judicial Fund 573 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | $13,589,246 | ($13,589,246) | $7,936,529 | ($7,936,529) |
| 2013 | $13,961,755 | ($13,961,755) | $17,063,009 | ($17,063,009) |
| 2014 | $13,961,755 | ($13,961,755) | $17,063,009 | ($17,063,009) |
| 2015 | $13,961,755 | ($13,961,755) | $17,063,009 | ($17,063,009) |
| 2016 | $13,961,755 | ($13,961,755) | $17,063,009 | ($17,063,009) |
| Fiscal Year | Probable Revenue Gain from Fair Defense 5073 |
Probable (Cost) from Fair Defense 5073 |
|---|---|---|
| 2012 | $7,936,529 | ($7,936,529) |
| 2013 | $17,063,009 | ($17,063,009) |
| 2014 | $17,063,009 | ($17,063,009) |
| 2015 | $17,063,009 | ($17,063,009) |
| 2016 | $17,063,009 | ($17,063,009) |
The Comptroller of Public Accounts (CPA) was not able to estimate the revenue from the $10 court cost due insufficient conviction data. The agency also did not have information to estimate the impact from the $2 filing fee.
The Office of court Administration (OCA) estimates total revenue to the new GR-D Account of $29.5 million in fiscal year 2012, due to partial year implementation, and $48.1 million per year for fiscal years 2013 to 2016.
For the new $10 criminal court cost, OCA used based on historical court activity data from fiscal year 2009, during which there were 6,032,540 convictions in cases handled by justice and municipal courts (other than cases involving parking and pedestrians). OCA estimates that the new court cost of $10 per conviction would result in annual assessed court costs of $60,325,400. Using a 65 percent collection rate for court costs collected in the municipal and justice of the peace courts, the agency estimates the court cost revenue collected to be $39,211,510. Of this amount, five percent of would be retained by the county as a service fee and the remaining 95 percent would be remitted to the state, resulting in a revenue gain to the state of $37,250,935 per year. Two percent of the money remitted to the state, or approximately $745,019 per year based on OCA’s estimates, would be used by the Comptroller of Public Accounts (CPA) for audit purposes. The remaining $36.5 million per year would be used for the bill's other intended purposes.
For the new $2 non-court document filing fee, the OCA does not have statewide statistics on the number of statewide filings that would incur the new fee. However the agency reported that there were 236,129 applicable filings with the Travis County Clerk in 2009. Using the basis that the Travis County population is 4.14 percent of the statewide population, OCA estimates that the number of filings in Travis County is 4.14 percent of the total number of applicable filings annually in the state. Based on that assumption, OCA estimates the number of statewide filings to be 5,703,599 per year and that the new fee would raise $11,407,198 in Texas each year. Five percent of this amount would be retained by the county as a service fee and the remaining 95 percent, or $10.8 million, would be remitted to the state. Two percent of the money remitted to the state, or approximately $216,737 per year based on OCA’s estimates, would be used by the CPA for audit purposes. The remaining $10.6 million per year would be used for the bill's other intended purposes.
The CPA estimated an adminstrative costs to the agency of $330,00 in fiscal year 2012 and $112,000 in subsequent years. The administrative costs to the CPA reflect the funds the agency identified that would be necessary to contract for temporary seasonal employees to handle the increased amount of workload to process lien fillings and releases, updating and program maintenance to the existing fee system due to the creation of new court cost fees.
For the purposes of this analysis, it is assumed that all receipts collected would be appropriated by the Legislature as indicated in the table above. In each fiscal year, the following expenditures would occur: $13 million would be appropriated to the Supreme Court; two percent of revenues would be used by the CPA; and that the remaining revenues would then be transferred to the Judicial Fund and Fair Defense and be appropriated.
This legislation would do one or more of the following: create or recreate a dedicated account in the General Revenue Fund, create or recreate a special or trust fund either with or outside of the Treasury, or create a dedicated revenue source. Legislative policy, implemented as Government Code 403.094, consolidated special funds (except those affected by constitutional, federal, or other restrictions) into the General Revenue Fund as of August 31, 1993 and eliminated all applicable statutory revenue dedications as of August 31, 1995. Each subsequent Legislature has reviewed bills that affect funds consolidation. The fund, account, or revenue dedication included in this bill would be subject to funds consolidation review by the current Legislature.
| Source Agencies: | 212 Office of Court Administration, Texas Judicial Council, 304 Comptroller of Public Accounts
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| LBB Staff: | JOB, KK, ZS, JJO, TB
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