Alabama court fees imposed by local bills are an affliction in need of treatment
Every session, a raft of new local bills floats in and passes through the Alabama Legislature without obstruction or much discussion. We need to stop and look at one type of local bill more closely.
Local bills for court fees are a warning. They alert us to a few possible systemic problems – either the Legislature is not adequately funding our unified court system, local governments are not paying their share of local court programs, or our local court’s bureaucracy has calcified and can no longer support itself within its budget.
Regardless of the cause, the increase in fees affects those who can least afford to pay. We ask our legislators to support SB 177 (sponsored by Sen. Rodger Smitherman) and HB 499 (sponsored by Rep. Chris England) with the hope that the new commission will study these fees and ensure that we equitably fund our courts.
In 1975, Alabama’s Constitution was amended to reorganize the judiciary to create a “unified judicial system” that includes district and circuit courts but excludes municipal and probate courts. What unifies the 41 circuits, and their courts, is, to a great degree, funding. With the reorganization came the promise that “[a]dequate and reasonable financing for the entire unified judicial system shall be provided” by the Legislature. This was an important choice to fund our courts collectively through taxes, not by regressive, user-driven fees.
Nevertheless, every year, local bills to permit new fees that fund county courts pass unabated. The two COVID sessions have been no exception. In 2020, four bills passed that created or increased fees allowed to be charged in three counties. Those bills could increase user fees by nearly half a million dollars in 2021. Three more bills introduced in the 2021 session could increase fees by $600,000 per year.
What do these bills do? Two create library funds for local courts. One goes into a fund to build and maintain jails. Three others would mostly pay for personnel expenses for sheriffs, court security and court clerks. The final bill would create a mental health diversion program.
These bills’ existence raises serious questions, and some potentially trigger constitutional issues because of a judge’s control over the funds’ disbursement. Putting aside those bills that fund new jails or sheriffs on the backs of people caught in our justice system, the rest of the activities that these new fees fund likely fall within the normal scope of a court’s operation that we would expect the court to pay with the money allocated to it from our taxes. Why then is the Legislature approving fees instead of allocating the appropriate funding to courts?
The short answer is no one really knows. One bill (SB 56 from 2019) explained its motivation:
The financial restraints existing in the State General Fund budget have resulted in a shortfall to the Unified Judicial System that has caused the layoff of many judicial employees.
The fees collected under this bill could raise $300,000 in Jackson County in 2021 to pay the salaries of court employees. While the same logic may not apply to the bills that passed in 2020 or could pass this year regarding user-funded court fees, it is a clear condemnation of the legislative budgeting process and, more broadly, how the judicial system is funded.
But we do not have a comprehensive view of the effect that this piecemeal funding is having on our courts or on the people who need or are forced to use them. Court fees do not sunset, are not capped after they meet a particular goal, and are not part of the regular budgeting process. They allow court bureaucracies to take on a life of their own with little or no way to bring them to heel. In short, there is no accountability in this kind of revenue.
Indeed, the 2014 court cost study by the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama found the increasing use of court costs to fund the judicial system threatened the independence of the unified court system and created a structure that is “archaic, inefficient and without transparency.” It noted that as a result of the dependence of courts and other agencies on costs assessed in cases, “[t]he judicial system has become a collection agency, not only for itself but also for other branches of government.”
Enter SB 177 and HB 499, which would study the process of court costs that fly under the radar, review and analyze the need for current court costs, and be the central point where new court costs are requested. Without a court cost commission, we will continue to allow courts to tax residents millions of dollars a year without oversight. We must end that practice now.
Wingo Smith is a regional policy analyst for the SPLC Action Fund.
Photo by AP Images/Michael Wade
