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Report to the Legislature | Statewide Collection of Court-Ordered Debt for 2018-19 (Action Required)
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Summary
Summary
Judicial Council staff recommend approval of the Report on Statewide Collection of Court-Ordered Debt for 2018-19 for transmittal to the Legislature. Penal Code section 1463.010(c) requires the Judicial Council to report the extent to which each court or county collections program is following best practices, the programs' performance, and any changes necessary to improve performance of collection programs statewide. In 2018-19, statewide collections programs collected $1.40 billion in total revenue, of which $859.1 million was nondelinquent (forthwith) court-ordered debt and $542.9 million was from delinquent accounts. This is a decline of approximately 6.9 percent over the previous fiscal year. There are many contributing factors to the decline in revenue. The one that is likely the greatest contributor to this reduction is the ongoing trend of reduced criminal filings from 2008-09 through 2017-18. Other contributing factors, as reported by collections programs, include increased access to ability to pay determinations and greater use of community service in lieu of cash payments for fines. Since reporting began in 2008-09, a total of $6.9 billion in delinquent court-ordered debt has been collected by court and county collections programs. Total outstanding delinquent debt at the end of 2018-19 was $10.6 billion. This figure represents approximately a 3.1 percent increase over the $10.3 billion reported for 2017-18. Additionally, as stated in the report submitted to the Department of Finance and the Joint Legislative Budget Committee per Government Code section 68514, this report contains revised or additional information that was not included in the October report. The report required under Government Code section 68514 was submitted to the Legislature on October 1, 2019 and is available at www.courts.ca.gov/7466.htm.
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