Legislative task force seeks alternative funding sources for Alabama courts

Yahoo

20-05-2025

Members of the Cost Cost Task Force gather to discuss ongoing issues with court-imposed fines and fees at the Alabama Supreme Court on Monday, May 19, 2025. (Ralph Chapoco/Alabama Reflector)
A group of judges, legislators and agency staff will explore ways to fund the state's court system in lieu of relying on fines and fees imposed by the courts.
Members of the Court Cost Task Force convened the first meeting on Monday at the Alabama Supreme Court to review possible alternative funding streams to pay expenses for a court system that has been chronically underfunded.
'Most court costs, which you will see in just a minute, are going to non-court entities,' said Sarah Hicks Stewart, chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, who presided over the meeting. 'By that, I mean non-judicial branch people. The vast majority of court costs are not going to court.'
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Non-court entities are receiving their funding from the fines imposed by the courts that are not tied to the state's criminal legal system, Stewart said.
The group plans to issue a report near the start of the 2026 legislative session in January outlining recommendations to the Legislature to mitigate the issues that arise when courts impose fines and fees on individuals who need access to the courts.
Courts receive a significant portion of their operational expenses from fines and fees that judges impose. But the revenues collected go to pay for programs that are not necessarily tied to the court system.
Revenues that are disbursed to agencies are also not enough to cover the full cost of operating and must rely on other sources. Fines and fees also disproportionately affect the state's most vulnerable populations.
According to data obtained from the Alabama State Bar website, courts collected about $480 million from court fines and fees imposed by the courts. Of that, about $26.5 million went on to pay for expenses for court operations.
The majority, about $312 million or 67%, went to third parties. Some of it is in the form of restitution for criminal cases. About $160 million went to judgments while another $118 million was disbursed toward the Alabama Central Disbursement Division Child Support Unit to process child support payments. Almost $1.5 million went toward child support payments.
About $126 million are disbursed to non-court expenses, such as the General Fund budget, which receives money from sales taxes from the internet. According to the Alabama State Bar Association's website, the General Fund budget receives almost $75 million of the fines and fees that are paid to the courts.
There are also disparities in the fines and fees that courts impose that people will pay depending on the county.
Constitution Act 96 is supposed to prohibit the Alabama Legislature from enacting any laws 'regulating costs and charges of courts, or fees, commissions or allowances of public officers' to specific counties and not all the counties in the state.
But fines and fees imposed on people by courts differ depending on the county because local officials convince state lawmakers to sponsor legislation to impose additional costs that fund different programs within those counties.
'Our Legislature is very clever to figure out that if they have a local act with statewide constitutional implications, then they could trump that statewide constitutional Act 96,' Stewart said. 'That is how they are all presented now, something that the state votes on as constitutional amendments, and that is how the local acts are continuing to get passed.'
An increasing number of bills get enacted that increase the filing fees which then pose problems for people who require access to the criminal justice system.
'You have got the filing fees that are collected upfront with civil filings,' Stewart said. 'We have some places in which that number is so high right now that it is really becoming an access to justice issue for people who can afford to file something with that particular county.'
Collecting payments on civil filings is easier because they are imposed on the front end, before individuals may access court. A larger problem is collecting payments for criminal cases when the court orders fines and fees, as well as restitution payments shortly after a case has been adjudicated.
Brenda Ganey, the clerk of courts for Baldwin County, estimated that courts collect about 22% of the fines and fees that courts impose on defendants after they violate the law.
'To me, the low hanging fruit in all this is, how do we increase the 22% of collections, because that is money sitting there right now that, no matter what you change, no matter what you make uniform across the board, we are leaving 78% of potential money,' said Rep. Chris Blackshear, R-Smiths Station, vice chair of the House Ways and Means General Fund Committee and who attended the meeting.
J. Langford Floyd, a former judge who helped Stewart with the research, said that would be 'blood out of a turnip.'
'Usually your criminal defendants are your lower income to no income people,' he said. 'They are also the 20,000 that are sitting in the state penitentiary that have no way to pay it, and don't really care about paying as long as they are in the state penitentiary.'
'If there could be some incentive for the defendant to pay what they owe, then that would make collection easier,' said Robert E. Wilters, the vice president of the Alabama District Attorneys Association.
Legislators such as Blackshear and Sen. Will Barfoot, R-Pike Road, said that additional revenue options, such as raising taxes, were not an option they would consider.
'Why is it so difficult to do what is right,' Blackshear said. 'And that is to not break the law. Don't do the crime. That is the simple solution.'
The group will meet again during the summer to further discuss ideas.
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