BILL ANALYSIS Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary Senator Carole Migden, Chair 57 (Alarcon) Hearing Date: 5/26/05 Amended: 5/23/05 Consultant: Nora Lynn Policy Vote: Public Safety 4-1 _________________________________________________________________ ____ BILL SUMMARY: SB 57 authorizes county boards of supervisors to levy assessments of $2 for every $10 or fraction thereof on every fine, penalty or forfeiture imposed for criminal convictions to fund emergency medical services. SB 57 also authorizes county boards of supervisors to levy an additional $2 assessment for every $10 for violations involving seatbelt use, speeding, driving under the influence and domestic violence. Counties with pediatric trauma units are allotted 15% of the funds collected. _________________________________________________________________ ____ Fiscal Impact (in thousands) Major Provisions 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 Fund Assessments Potentially significant revenues;Special* See staff comments Court programming costs $184** Special* (first assessment) Court programming costs Up to $1,425** Special* (second assessment) Manual processing (statewide)$180 $180 $180 Special* Manual notices (Fresno) $150*** $300*** $300*** Special* _____ * Maddy Emergency Medical Services Fund; 15% of total slated for counties' pediatric trauma units ** Based on number of counties that participate; cost of $25,000 per county *** If Fresno County elects to assess $2 additional assessment on specific offenses _________________________________________________________________ ____ STAFF COMMENTS: This bill meets the criteria to be placed on the Suspense file. Until fiscal year 2002-03, 170% in penalty assessments were applied to every fine. The current penalty assessments are up to 250% and are assessed as follows: State penalty assessment: Penal Code Sec. 1464 authorizes the assessment of $10 for every $10 in base fines with 30% going to the assessing county and 70% transmitted to the state and allocated as follows: 0.33% to the Fish & Game Preservation Fund; 32.02% to the Restitution Fund; 23.99% to the Peace Officers Training Fund; 25.7% to the Driver Training Penalty Assessment Fund; 7.88% to the to the Corrections Training Fund; 0.78% (not to exceed $850,000 -- continued-- Page 2 SB 57 (Alarcon) per year) to the Local Public Prosecutors and Public Defenders Fund; 8.64% to the Victim-Witness Assistance Fund; and 0.66% to the Traumatic Brain Injury Fund. County penalty assessment: Government Code Sec. 76000 et seq authorizes the assessment of $7 for every $10 in base fines. The money collected is to be placed in any of the following funds if established by a county's board of supervisors: Courthouse Construction Fund; Criminal Justice Facilities Construction Fund; Automated Fingerprint Identification Fund; Emergency Medical Services Fund; and DNA Identification Fund. State surcharge: As part of the 2002-03 Budget Act, the Legislature imposed a temporary state surcharge of 20% on every base fine collected by the court. The surcharge took effect on Sept. 30, 2002, and all money collected is deposited into the General Fund. State court facilities construction: Two years ago, as part of the Trial Court Facilities Act of 2002, the Legislature established the State Court Facilities Construction Fund and added a state court construction penalty assessment of up to $5 for every $10 in base fines. The variation in the assessment amount is dependent on the amount collected by the county for deposit into the local Courthouse Construction Fund established pursuant to Government Code Sec. 76100. As a result the penalty assessment ranges from 0 for every $10 in two counties to the full $5 for every $10 in nine counties. This provision took effect on Jan. 1, 2003. Court security: As part of the 2003-04 Budget Act, the Legislature approved a flat fee of $20 on every conviction for a criminal offense to fund court security costs. Proposition 69: Finally, as approved by voters in November 2004, Prop. 69 levied a $1 penalty assessment on every $10 in fines and forfeitures resulting from criminal and traffic offenses and dedicates these revenues to state and local governments for DNA databank implementation purposes. The state will receive 70% of these funds in the first two years, 50% in the third year and 25% annually thereafter. The remainder goes to local governments. State Controller penalty assessment data indicates the state collects approximately $146 million annually in penalty revenue. If all 58 counties were to elect to assess the additional across-the-board $2 assessment, revenues to their Maddy Funds could exceed $16 million per year. Revenues from the second $2 assessment for specified crimes are unknown. Assuming that assessments on the specified crimes cited in SB 57 make up one-tenth of all assessments levied by courts, additional revenues would be in the neighborhood of $1.6 million. Judicial Council estimates reprogramming existing case management and accounting systems to accommodate the additional $2 assessment will cost approximately $184,000. Further, Judicial Council indicates there would be a need for some manual identification of certain violations of reckless driving statutes. Not all violations of these sections would be subject to the additional penalty assessment, so court staff would need to -- continued -- Page 3 SB 57 (Alarcon) review each case for the assessment's applicability. There were 24,590 reckless driving convictions in 2002; at 15 minutes of court time per violation for court clerks' assessments, costs would be approximately $180,000 per year. Additional costs would be incurred for programming to include the additional $2 crime-specific assessments authorized by SB 57. Preliminary Judicial Council estimates those programming costs would average approximately $25,000 per county, or $1.425 million statewide. Fresno County's system, however, cannot be modified to implement the offense-specific penalty assessment and, therefore, courts would have to manually calculate the affected offenses' assessments. There were 145,000 traffic infractions in Fresno County in 2003. Assuming 30% of those were for speeding violations, 43,500 cases per year would require manual calculation of the penalty assessments and the manual sending of courtesy notices to offenders. Manually reviewing processing courtesy notices alone would likely incur costs of $275,000 STAFF NOTES the author has indicated intent to further amend the bill while on Suspense to address inadvertent drafting errors.