Proposed Ohio bill would allow courts to clean up their financial records

Court fees and fines stay on books forever.

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By Lou Grieco, Staff Writer 7:13 PM Sunday, December 4, 2011

DAYTON — Convicted murderer Marvallous Keene owes the Montgomery County Clerk of Courts office $1,456 in court costs, but there’s no way to collect it. The state executed Keene in July 2009.

That money, however, stays on the books — there is currently no way for courts to remove court costs — and makes up part of the $42.5 million in fees, costs, fines and restitution still owed to Montgomery County Common Pleas Courts.

Courts surveyed in Montgomery, Greene, Butler and Warren counties report having millions of dollars in money owed, going back decades, much of it uncollectible.

Uncollectible fees skew the accounting system and create confusion, area clerks of courts said.

But under law, court costs must stay on the books, even when the debtor is dead, in prison for life, indigent, or missing for decades.

“To have to keep carrying that over every month is like, ‘really?’” said Clerk of Courts Greg Brush. “It just becomes a futile exercise.”

Brush estimated that costs — court expenses that are billed in nearly every case — could make up half of the $42.5 million, and cannot be altered. Fines and restitutions can be altered after they are issued, but rarely are, he said.

Courts could get the authority to address costs soon. Ohio House Bill 247 has been passed out of committee and could reach the House floor this week.

The bill would give trial courts the ability to waive, suspend or modify uncollectible costs.

It would also clarify the definition of “case,” so that defendants are not charged for each individual offense.

Bill sponsor Rep. Jim Butler, R-Oakwood, said last week that the bill was a response to two 2007 Ohio Supreme Court cases. One was State v. Clevenger, in which the court found that trial courts do not have the authority to waive the imposition or payment of court costs after they have been imposed, even when the offender is indigent and has no capacity to pay.

Courts need that authority, Butler said, or “otherwise it’s a complete accounting nightmare.”

The second case is City of Middleburg Heights v. Quinones, in which the court found that costs are to be charged per case, and not per offense.

Butler said both provisions were recommendations from the Joint Committee to Study Court Costs and Filing Fees. The bill would not generate any fiscal effects for the state or any political subdivisions, according to Ohio Legislative Service Commission.

The Ohio Judicial Conference is in favor of the bill.

Brush said that common pleas courts are owed $619,000 from civil cases, mostly from foreclosures in which the banks have not settled, and $74,208 from domestic relations cases. Criminal cases account for $41.8 million, and go “as far back as we’ve got our books,” Brush said.

The county municipal court is owed an additional $2.4 million, he said.

In some courts, an attempt to get a full accounting of what is owed will crash the computer systems, so officials offered a snapshot of recent years. Three municipal courts gave numbers for the years 2006 to 2010:

• Traffic and criminal defendants from those years owe $941,000 to Vandalia Municipal Court, though $61,000 of that represents money owed by people on payment plans, said Chief Deputy Clerk Karen Goffena.

• In Miamisburg Municipal Court, defendants from those same years owe $2.5 million, said Clerk Cindy Coffey.

• In Kettering Municipal Court, defendants owe $528,000.

In addition, Xenia Municipal Court is owed $3.2 million. Fairborn Municipal Court is owed $3.7 million dating back to 1991, though much of that figure would include the 30 percent surcharge added by a collection agency, officials said.

“Many of those people, you can’t find them,” said Franklin Municipal Judge Rupert Ruppert, whose court has more than $1 million in delinquent fees. “Some of them are dead.”

Court officials stress that they do collect plenty of money. Montgomery County Municipal Court has one of the lower collection rates, 33 percent, according to Brush. In Kettering, during the 2006-2010 period, the court collected $14.2 million, equalling a 96 percent collection rate, according to Clerk of Court Andrea White.

Brush said his office has made an effort to collect from inmates, bringing in more than $1 million over a 10-year period. Still, he said, that’s limited by the fact that inmate pay is extremely low, averaging $18 per month, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

When inmates are released, they usually have few job prospects and little ability to pay, making high costs and fines unfeasable, Brush said.

“There’s no way in the world they’re going to pay all of that off,” he said. “There’s no incentive for them to even try. It will sit there forever.”

Brush said that House Bill 247 would help, adding, “almost everybody else can write things off.”

Most of the courts use collection agencies to try to get money, but as time goes on, those debts get harder to collect, even by the agencies.

Cindy Coffey, Miamisburg Clerk of Court, said the Miamisburg court puts warrant blocks on all outstanding cases, thus blocking people from renewing their driver’s licenses until they pay. Instead, they drive without licenses, she said.

“So many people are transient,” Coffey said. “The cost of trying to track these people is so high.”

Mark Gokavi and Denise Callahan contributed to this story.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2057 or lgrieco@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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