BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 1657
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Date of Hearing: May 9, 2012
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
AB 1657 (Wieckowski) - As Amended: March 22, 2012
Policy Committee: Public Safety
Vote: 5-0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
Yes Reimbursable: No
SUMMARY
SUMMARY
This bill creates an additional $1 penalty assessment on all
Vehicle Code violations, other than parking fines, to provide
additional support to the Roman Reed Spinal Cord Injury Fund for
spinal cord injury research at the University of California.
This bill requires collected penalties to be deposited with the
county treasurer for transfer to the State Treasurer, to be made
available upon appropriation by the Legislature, for allocation
to the Roman Reed Spinal Cord Injury Research Penalty Account
(created by this bill) within the existing Roman Reed Fund at
UC.
FISCAL EFFECT
1)Potential increased revenue in the range of $14 million.
Extrapolating from about 7 million court abstracts with
convictions for typically multiple Vehicle Code violations,
which average about two per abstract, in 2009, a $1 penalty
assessment on each traffic fine would result in increased
revenue of about $14 million, assuming no diminishing returns
as a result of changes in judicial behavior, collections, or
ability to pay.
2)Proliferation of assessments and charges has driven fines
steadily upward . For example, a $500 traffic fine with current
assessments is now $1,829, shocking defendants who think $500
means $500. A $100 fine is $479.
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3)Increasing assessments may result in diminishing returns .
Judges have the discretion to reduce the base fine, which then
reduces revenue to state and local governments, as well as to
assessments. As current penalty assessments quadruple the base
fine, increasing fines and assessments may have the unintended
consequence of reduced fine collections. In addition, indigent
defendants facing large fees may simply be unable to pay, and
as a result lose their license and car insurance.
As noted by the California Research Bureau (CRB) in its 2006
review of penalty assessments, "High penalty assessments may
result in higher rates of default by the guilty parties. Some
offenders may spend time in jail, or plea for community
service, rather than pay the fine and penalty assessment. The
end result may be that a substantial amount of fines, fees and
revenue is not collected."
4)One-time state trial court costs in the range of $200,000 for
programming costs.
COMMENTS
1)Rationale . Proponents contend the value of funding spinal
injury research (the Roman Reed Spinal Cord Injury Research
Act) at UC merits an additional $1 penalty assessment.
According to the author, some 600,000 Californians live with
paralysis and almost half of all reported spinal cord injuries
are caused by traffic accidents. The disability, loss of
earning power, and loss of personal freedom resulting from
spinal cord injury is devastating for the injured individual,
and creates a huge financial burden for the State.
The Roman Reed Spinal Cord Injury Research Act was created in
2000 to fund promising research-driven therapies with the
potential to enhance the functionality of people with
paralysis. State funding for the Roman Reed Fund has been
eliminated, jeopardizing the research that this program
undertakes in spinal cord injuries and paralysis. According
to the author, state funding of about $15 million since 2000
has leveraged about $60 million in federal research funds.
2)The Roman Reed research program was created by AB 750 (Dutra),
Statutes of 2000 to support spinal cord injury research. The
original five-year program sunset was extended to January 2011
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in 2004. State funding (primarily GF) was allocated to UC, and
administered by the Reeve-Irvine Research Center (Center) at
UC Irvine.
3)Existing Penalty Assessments . Existing law provides for a
series of intertwined and complex penalty assessments. As
noted by the CRB, "California now has dedicated funding
streams for over 269 separate court fines, fees, forfeitures,
surcharges and penalty assessments that may be levied on
offenders and violators." The major assessments include:
a) A state penalty assessment of $10 for every $10 on every
fine, penalty or forfeiture imposed and collected by the
courts for all criminal offenses, including vehicle
offenses except parking fines. Of the funds collected, 70%
goes to the state and 30% to the county. The state portion
is distributed as follows:
i) Fish and Game Preservation Fund: .33%
ii) Restitution Fund:
32.02%
iii) Peace Officers
Training Fund: 23.99%
iv) Driver
Training Penalty Assessment Fund: 25.70%
v) Corrections Training Fund: 7.88%
vi) Local Public Prosecutors and Public Defenders
Fund: .78%, not to exceed $850,000
vii) Victim-Witness Assistance Fund: 8.64%
viii) Traumatic Brain Injury Fund: .66%.
b) A county penalty assessment of $7 for every $10 on every
fine, penalty, or forfeiture imposed and collected by the
courts for criminal offenses, including vehicle offenses,
except parking fines. Proceeds are distributed to funds
established by county boards of supervisors: Courthouse
Construction, Criminal Justice Facilities Construction,
Automated Fingerprint Identification, Emergency Medical
Services, DNA.
c) A state surcharge of 20% on every base fine collected by
the court, deposited in the GF.
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d) A State Court Facilities Construction penalty assessment
of up to $5 for every $10 upon every fine, penalty or
forfeiture collected by the courts for criminal offenses.
e) A court security fee of $40 on every conviction for a
criminal offense for court security.
f) A $4 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 identification and databank implementation.
g) The EMS Fund provides supplemental financing for local
emergency services via a $2 penalty assessment for each $10
of traffic fines.
h) An additional $30 for every felony or misdemeanor
criminal conviction and $35 for every criminal infraction,
including traffic offenses, but not including parking
offenses, for the Immediate and Critical Needs Account
(ICNA) within the existing State Court Facilities
Construction Fund (SCFCF).
i) Emergency air ambulance transportation assessment of $4.
4)The CRB found that 86% of penalty assessments are paid by
Vehicle Code violators . Criminal defendants who committed more
serious offenses are less likely to have the ability to pay
any fines assessed in addition to other punishments such as
county jail or state prison sentences.
5)Judicial Council Evaluating Penalty Assessments . Pursuant to a
2010 budget trailer bill, the Judicial Council has convened a
Court-Ordered Debt Task Force to identify and evaluate the
fees, fines, forfeitures, penalties, and assessments currently
in place. Final recommendations may be available this summer.
6)Support includes UC, which states "The Roman Reed Spinal Cord
Injury Research Act has been of enormous importance in terms
of advancing research on spinal cord injury and bringing new
funding to the state from the National Institutes of Health
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(NIH) and other entities."
7)Opposition includes the California Public Defenders
Association, which states, "While there are individual
criminal acts that result in spinal cord injury, there is no
nexus between such injury and all of the crimes to which this
$3 assessment would attach.?
"An inevitable side effect of these ballooning fines is that
fewer and fewer criminal defendants can afford to pay them.
Three quarters of misdemeanor defendants and 90% of felony
defendants are indigent, as indicated by the fact they are
represented by public defenders or other appointed counsel.
When defendants cannot pay the fine it is unconstitutional to
imprison them for their poverty, so the fine goes uncollected.
"In other cases defendants who are already sentenced to jail,
but can't afford the monetary portion of their sentence will
simply opt to convert the fine to additional jail time, which
results in more cost to the government rather than more money
in their coffers. For this reason multiplying penalty
assessments are often ineffective as revenue raisers, and
sometimes counterproductive."
8)Similar legislation by the author, with a $3 surcharge, was
held on this committee's Suspense File last year.
Analysis Prepared by : Geoff Long / APPR. / (916) 319-2081