Posted June 27 -

When felony offenders are convicted and sentenced in Bee County, they are often ordered to pay fines, restitution and court costs.

That doesn’t mean they pay, though.

District Clerk Anna Marie Silvas said Bee County is owed an estimated $1.5 million in court costs by offenders who are no longer on probation.

Silvas asked county commissioners earlier this month if she could hire a collection firm to collect the unpaid court costs or purchase the software so her staff can tackle the problem.

“I have actually been investigating the outstanding collections that our office, our department has incurred,” she said. “And I have visited with probation and I actually sent them a letter back in October of 2007 telling them I have a list of $1.5 million in outstanding collections to our department.”

She said the probation department investigated her findings and sent her a list several weeks ago of those offenders that could still be forced to pay their outstanding court costs.

Silvas said she also visited with the three district judges about the issue.

“The judges have indicated to me that it is a good idea to go out there and collect some of this money, but some of this money we will probably never see because it cannot be enforced by the court,” she said. “Once people are off probation, we don’t have any way of trying to collect this money other than to send a nice letter and see if someone will come in and say, yes, I’d like to pay my debt.”

The commissioners court took no action on her request.

Long overdue

Silvas said the outstanding court costs go back as far as 2000 and some even as far back as 1995.

Dana Hendrick, chief probation officer for the five-county area that includes Bee County, concedes a large amount of court costs were never collected in Bee County but he said that is the case in many counties across the state.

He said he doubts Bee County is out $1.5 million.

By his own estimation, the county could be out no more than $500,000 or so over those years, he said.

He suspects Silvas is also including court costs imposed in civil matters in her sum.

The probation department does not collect fines, restitution or court costs imposed in civil cases, he said.

But Silva told commissioners she was only talking about court costs associated with criminal cases.

She said she already redoubled her office’s efforts to collect court costs associated with civil cases since she assumed office last year.

“My hope is to try to increase our collections,” she said. “Last year because of steps we took in my office our collections increased 18 percent and this year up 17 percent. And it’s just by tightening up and trying to collect on the civil (cases), which we are able to do, but on the criminal (cases) we truly need a collections department or collections program.”

A change in tactics

Silvas said she is more than willing to allow her staff to temporarily try their hand at collecting the outstanding court costs if the county will fund the purchase of the necessary computer software.

She said she is willing to work hand-in-hand with the probation department to collect the outstanding court costs and new court costs as they are ordered by the court.

“Probation’s responsibility is to collect court costs but they collect probation costs first,” Silvas explained to commissioners. “That’s their first responsibility. Ours always comes at the end. It may be two years later; it may be 10 years later. Our idea is to try to collect our court costs within the first six months.”

Hendrick refuted the assertion, saying his office is required to collect court costs before fines or restitution.

“The judges have set the priority at court costs first, followed by restitution and then fines,” he said. “The judges want to collect the court costs first to support for the probation system. Two out of every three dollars collected in court costs goes to support the probation system. And you can understand what it would look like if the fines were collected before the victims received their restitution.”

He said his office has time and again asked judges to revoke the probation of offenders who have failed to pay fines, restitution or court costs.

No debtors prisons

Hendrick said he welcomed Silvas’ proposal to try to collect the outstanding court costs herself, either by hiring a collections firm or starting her own collections department.

He said the district clerk’s office has the statutory authority over his department to collect the fines, court costs and restitution. However, the probation departments pretty much do all the collecting, he noted.

That’s because offenders are more prone to respond to an officer of the law than to a clerk in a courthouse, he said.

Hendrick said Silvas will find it tough going.

“The reason so many people get off of probation without paying court costs is that our forefathers didn’t believe we should put people in prison because they’re poor,” he explained. “Our forefathers didn’t believe in debtors prisons.”

He said that policy has been passed down generation after generation.

Indeed, for decades the state of Texas has made it difficult for judges to sentence offenders to prison simply because they failed to pay fines, court costs or restitution, Hendrick said.

In the past court officers had to prove to judges that offenders could pay but simply refused to pay fines, court costs or restitution before their probation was revoked and they were sent to prison.

But because of the low wages earned in much of Bee County, offenders could automatically raise the defense that they were too poor to pay the fees and the judges had no choice but to let them off probation, Hendrick explained.

A new law that went into effect Sept. 1, 2007, makes it even harder for courts to collect outstanding fines and court costs, he added.

The new law requires courts to prove that the defendant has the money to pay fees, Hendrick said.

He said judges now have to demand and acquire federal income tax statements and other documents to prove the defendants have the money to pay their fees and fines — a time-consuming affair certain to be used as a last resort.

Besides, what Silvas may not know, Hendrick said, is that half of all court costs collected go to the state of Texas.

“Collecting court costs isn’t a real revenue generator,” he said. “A lot of the court costs go directly to Austin.”

Getting started

Silvas figures she can run the program out of her office for between $6,000 and $12,000 annually with her present staff. “It would only be a pilot program at first because eventually we would need a full-time staff to run the department,” she said.

The small up-front costs of starting a collections department could be quite lucrative, for the cash-strapped county, she noted.

She said the Office of Court Administration, a state agency, has to approve any sort of collections program and will monitor collections.

The state’s Office of Court Administration mandates that counties with populations over 60,000 establish their own collections department, Silvas explained to the commissioners.

And many counties with smaller populations are also opening their own collection bureaus, she said.

San Patricio County is one. Silvas said. She said she has visited with San Patricio County officials about their collections program.

She said she has also met with representatives of companies that offer collection services and companies that offer computer software for collections services.

A case of bad timing?

“You’re guessing, estimating, that should we ever go full bore into this that you would need a staff or someone to do it and you would pay for that through collections,” Precinct 2 Commissioner Susan Stasny asked Silvas.

Silvas said the county might well see an additional 100 percent to 300 percent increase in collections if it hires a collections firm or allows her staff to do it.

Bee County Judge David Silva didn’t like the idea of shelling out $6,000-$12,000 for the trial program, given the rising price of fuel costs that is crippling the economy.

“This may be bad timing to do it because of the situation we’re in, economic-wise. Gas is up, unemployment is up,” he said. “I don’t think things are going to straighten up in the next year or two. I’m not sure, but I think we’re going to see some hard (economic) times before we see better (economic) times.”

More the reason to redouble efforts to collect outstanding fees, Silvas replied.

“If you’re having hard times then I think this may be a great opportunity to try to collect more revenue for the county,” she responded.