The High Price of Using Justice Fines and Fees to Fund Government

December 2020

The High Price of Using Justice Fines and Fees to Fund

Government in Florida

Chris Mai and Maria Rafael

Vera Institute of Justice 2

Summary

Fines and fees imposed by the Florida justice system place an enormous financial burden on the

people who are charged and pay them—disproportionately Black and brown people and people

with low incomes. People who cannot pay risk a spiraling set of consequences—such as losing

their driver’s license—and ultimately owing even more money as their debt is sent to private

debt collectors.

In 2018, Florida’s state and local governments collected at least $755 million in criminal and

traffic fines and fees as revenue. Although exact figures on the number of people who paid fines

and fees are unavailable, state data reveals that at least 242,000 people paid some amount of

fines and fees, with the typical cost topping $5,000 for a first- or second-degree felony and

$1,000 for a misdemeanor. These revenues account for less than 1 percent of state revenues and

less than 2 percent of revenues in nearly all counties. However, certain agencies, such as court

clerks, are highly reliant on fines and fees to fund their budgets.

Fines and fees are incredibly costly and harmful to the people who owe them. Hundreds of

thousands of Floridians have debt from fines and fees that they are unable to pay. And they

disproportionately burden people with low incomes, create long-lasting financial and civic

harm, and can increase the likelihood of unnecessary contact with police.

Introduction

In Florida, contact with the justice system is expensive. An arrest, a criminal conviction, even a

traffic ticket can result in fines and fees that total hundreds or thousands of dollars. For

example, people are charged a fine when they are convicted of an offense, but they also face a

range of court fees: fees to enter and stay in the jail, monitoring fees while awaiting trial, and

monthly fees for probation, among others. While fees and surcharges are intended to reimburse

government operations, fines are intended to serve as a punishment for an offense. However,

they both become revenue that is deposited into government bank accounts and used to fund

both justice agencies and general government operations. Black, brown, and low-income people

pay a greater share of their income in fines and fees than everyone else.

Failure to pay fines and

fees in Florida results in harmful consequences, such as the suspension of a driver’s license, or,

in the case of people who still owe fines and fees connected to a felony offense, the loss of voting

rights.

And because police are responsible for issuing traffic tickets and other related fees, the

reliance on fines and fees creates unnecessary contact between police and communities of color.

This research brief explores the use of fines and fees in Florida and seeks to answer two

questions: (1) What is the financial impact of fines and fees on Florida residents, and (2) how

much do state and local governments in the state collect in fines and fees? To answer these

questions, researchers from the Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) collected and analyzed budget

data from the state, county, and municipal governments of Florida for fiscal year 2018 (see

“Methods” at page 10 for more information). As state and local governments prepare budgets

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that are under increased stress from the COVID-19 crisis, it is more important than ever for

taxpayers to understand how their governments are profiting from the collection of fines and

fees.

Vera’s Findings

How are Floridians harmed by fines and fees?

Floridians are charged a range of fines and fees at all stages of the justice system, such as

▪ Court fees: In addition to fines and restitution people may owe, there are many

flat fees that finance different government agencies. For example, there is a

mandatory $225 fee on all felony convictions and a $60 fee on all misdemeanor

and criminal traffic convictions, of which a portion is sent to the state’s General

Revenue Fund, which supports the state’s general operating expenses.

additional $65 fee on all convictions is used to fund legal aid and court

innovations, a $3 fee funds juvenile court programs, and a $50 fee funds crime

prevention, among others. People who are unable to afford an attorney are

charged a $50 fee to apply for one. Additionally, people are assessed a minimum

of $50 in a misdemeanor or criminal traffic case and a minimum of $100 in a

felony case for their own prosecution.

▪ Incarceration fees: People booked into a Florida jail in many counties are charged

a booking fee as well as a separate ”subsistence fee” of several dollars per day to

stay in the jail.

People in jails and prisons pay telephone fees and commissary

fees, as well as other kinds of fees, such as for work release programs.

▪ Probation and parole fees: When on probation or parole, people pay a fee, which

statute sets at no less than $40 per month, and they may also owe a number of

other fees related to their own supervision, such as for home confinement, drug

testing, or community service.

In Florida, the harms of fines and fees fall most acutely on Black, brown, and low-income

families.

Research has made plain that racial disparities exist at all stages of Florida’s criminal

justice system in ways that make Black Floridians more likely to be charged fines and fees.

Black Floridians make up 17 percent of the state’s population but comprise 35 percent of

arrests.

Black Floridians are disproportionately arrested for marijuana possession and

disproportionately cited for bicycle offenses—charges with a high degree of police discretion.

Low-income and Black households are most acutely impacted by driver’s license suspensions for

nonpayment of fines and fees.

For example, in Duval County, Florida, 2,000 tickets were

issued for jaywalking over a five-year period, imposing a $65 fine.

Nearly half of those people

had their driver’s licenses suspended for nonpayment, indicating that the $65 fine was beyond

their ability to pay. While Black residents make up less than one-third of the county’s

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population, they accounted for more than half of the people ticketed for jaywalking and more

than half of the people who lost their licenses. Another study found that Black drivers are

stopped and given seatbelt citations—

a fine of up to $60—at twice the rate

of white drivers.

Although the amount that people

pay over the course of their case

varies based on the nature of the

charge, their location, and the

discretion of local officials, justice

fines and fees can quickly grow to a

thousand dollars or more.

▪ In a typical first- or second-degree

felony case, fines and fees amount to

$5,200—which includes a $4,000 fine

and a number of different fees.

▪ A first-degree misdemeanor traffic

charge could amount to $1,300,

including a $1,000 fine and a number

of flat fees for crime prevention,

county radio systems, law

enforcement education, and court

facilities.

These amounts can easily overwhelm the budgets of low-income earners. In 2020, a person

working full-time at the Florida minimum wage earned $17,805.

With this household income,

paying for a typical felony case would use up 29 percent of a person’s annual pretax income; a

misdemeanor case, 7 percent. When low-wage workers are already far below the amount of

money they need for basic necessities, fines and fees make things worse. One-third of Florida

households are above the poverty line but still struggle to afford basic needs; the decision of

local and state officials to impose fines and fees on these households, while also exacting sharp

consequences for nonpayment, only compounds their financial challenges.

The state does not collect data on how many people are assessed or pay fines and fees, but

collections data makes estimation possible. In 2018, Florida counties collected $16 million from

a mandatory $65 fee on every felony, misdemeanor, and criminal traffic conviction, meaning

that this fee was paid more than 242,000 times.

This figure does not include people who were

charged fines and fees but couldn’t afford to pay, nor does it account for the thousands of people

each year who are charged fines and fees for municipal offenses. In addition, around half of

Florida counties reported collecting a total of $28 million from a $30 fee on traffic offenses used

to fund court facilities—the equivalent of charging that fee 924,000 times.

A 2019 analysis

found that 206,000 people with a felony conviction continued to owe fines and fees after

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completing their sentence and that Black people

were more likely to have court debt than white

people.

While an exact number is challenging to

calculate, it is clear that hundreds of thousands of

Floridians paid fines and fees in 2018, and at least

tens of thousands of additional people had fines and

fees assessed against them, but were unable to pay.

Fines and fees cause other collateral

harms

With a driving population of 16 million, Florida

currently has around two million people who

cannot legally drive because of unpaid court debt.

These people are locked out of many job

opportunities that require a valid license. They

either suffer the consequences of no transportation

in a state with limited transit options or risk further

tickets or even arrest for those who continue to drive while their license is suspended.

Court debt also causes other harms. In 2019, the state passed a law that would require

people with felony convictions to demonstrate they had paid all fines and fees on their case

before the state would restore their voting rights.

This law, which one judge called a “pay-to-vote

system” and activists have described as a modern-day poll tax, stripped voting rights from

hundreds of thousands of people with felony convictions who had gained the right to vote

through an amendment passed by Florida voters in 2018.

In mid-2020 a federal appeals court

upheld the law. Given that more than 45 percent of people who have felony convictions owe

more than $1,000, this means that the legislature and court’s decisions ultimately withhold the

right to vote from thousands of people.

Debt is considered “uncollectible” but continues to have harmful impact on

Floridians

A report from the Florida Court Clerks and Comptrollers acknowledges the high rates of poverty

among people who are charged fines and fees. In 2018, the court system collected fines and fees

from felony cases equal to 21 percent of the total fines and fees assessed on felony cases in that

year, and misdemeanor fines and fees equal to 69 percent of assessments on misdemeanor cases

(money collected in 2018 may have been assessed in a previous year).

The court clerks

reported that the people associated with 78 percent of the debt in felony cases and 31 percent of

the debt in misdemeanor cases were either incarcerated, indigent, or both and were considered

to have a “minimal collection expectation.”

While the clerks have acknowledged that payment

rates are low, particularly for felony cases, and that much of the debt will likely never be

collected, the debt still holds real-world consequences for the people who owe. After 90 days,

court clerks send any court debt to a private collection agency, which can add a surcharge of up

to 40 percent onto the original amount.

In 2018, the courts sent $397 million in criminal court

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debt and traffic court debt to private collections.

Even after being sent to collections, private

agencies collected the equivalent of only 10 percent of outstanding criminal debt and 31 percent

of civil traffic debt.

Regardless of how burdensome it is to have debt and in spite of rigorous

collection efforts on the part of both the state and private collections agencies, a large share of

people simply do not have the money to pay.

How much do governments profit?

Vera estimates that, in 2018, the total amount of money collected through criminal and traffic

fines and fees that funded state, county, and municipal governments was at least $755 million.

Assuming that 242,000 people paid some amount of fines and fees in 2018 (see above), this is

equivalent to an average of $3,100 per person.

Florida’s fine-collecting agencies

Each of Florida’s 67 counties has a county court that hears misdemeanor and traffic

offenses. The state’s 20 circuit courts handle felony and juvenile cases.

Some

fines and fees collected on misdemeanor, traffic, and felony cases go to the county

government, while the rest is sent to the state’s General Revenue Fund and various

state trust funds.

Each county in the state operates a jail that can charge fees on

people held in the facility. Counties run misdemeanor probation programs, and the

Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) runs felony probation and parole

supervision, all of which can collect monthly supervision fees.

Florida’s 411

incorporated municipalities collect revenue from fines on city code violations, traffic,

parking, and red light camera fines, and they receive some revenue that is passed

down through the county courts.

Table 1

Type of government

Total revenue, fiscal year 2018

Counties

$298 million in court fines and fees;

at least $15 million in incarceration fees

State

$256 million in court fines and fees; $56 million

collected by the FDOC from incarcerated people

Municipalities

$132 million

TOTAL

$755 million

Note: Discrepancies between values and the total amount are due to rounding.

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County fine and fee

revenue

Vera found that Florida

counties collected $313

million in criminal justice

fines and fee revenue. This

includes $298 million in

conviction fines and flat fees

earmarked for juvenile

justice, local law enforcement

education, crime prevention,

law libraries, court facilities,

and court technology. It also

includes $15 million in fees

collected from people in jails

in the 31 counties that make

this data available, including

admissions or “uniform” fees,

daily “subsistence” fees,

telephone fees, commissary,

and work release fees, among

others. This is the equivalent

of each person in the state’s

jails paying $480 in fees per

year.

Counties benefit from a

modest $14 in fine and fee revenue per resident in the typical county, although in three

counties—Bradford, Glades, and Monroe—collections exceed $30 per resident. Fines and fees

also make up only a small share of total county budgets; in the median county, fine and fee

revenue is only 0.9 percent.

While fine and fee revenue at the county level is modest compared to overall county budgets,

individual county criminal justice agencies can be very reliant on these revenues. In Leon

County, for example, fines and fees fund nearly one-third of the county probation services. They

also fully fund a drug intervention program and court innovation programs. They support more

than half of funding for the teen court, a juvenile diversion program.

Significantly, fines and

fees are the sole source of funding for Florida’s circuit and county court clerks—elected officials

with a number of record-keeping and financial management responsibilities for the court and

the county government.

Reliance on fines and fees comes with challenges. A report on court clerks’ operations found

that “[t]he established revenue sources for Clerks of Court have been unreliable from year to

year—and even within just one fiscal year—making it difficult for Clerks of Court to plan for

necessary improvements or unexpected events.”

This was especially true in early 2020 during

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the first few months of the COVID-19 crisis. Collections of “Article V” fines and fees—which

include criminal and traffic fines and fees, as well as civil court fees on things like foreclosure—

were only 88 percent of pre-pandemic projections in April 2020, 57 percent in May, and 55

percent in June.

State fine and fee revenue

Vera identified at least $311 million in fine and fee revenue for Florida’s state government.

Some revenue collected through Florida’s county and circuit courts is distributed to the state

General Revenue Fund and a variety of state trust funds. In 2018, $256 million in criminal and

traffic fines and fees was collected and sent to the state General Revenue Fund, as well as dozens

of state trust funds. Vera identified nearly 30 trust funds that receive revenues from fines and

fees. Some of the trust funds support criminal justice operations in the state, such as the courts

and the state’s attorney, while others are wholly unrelated to the justice system. For example, a

$5 surcharge on every seatbelt violation funds a special trust fund for epilepsy treatment and

programs. This method of using fee revenue to pay for public health needs is predicated on a

consistent number of traffic stops and police-community interactions in order to maintain

funding.

The FDOC, which operates community supervision for people convicted of felony offenses,

deposited $56 million to the state’s General Revenue Fund in 2018 from probation supervision

fees and commissary costs.

With a total state budget of $85 billion in 2018, fines and fees from

the justice system made up only a small share, 0.4 percent, of total state resources.

Municipal fine and fee revenue

Municipal governments collect fines and fees for violations of local ordinances, traffic and

parking fines, and red light camera fines. They also receive some revenue passed down from

county court and traffic court. Local governments collected at least $132 million in fines and fees

in 2018. In the median city and town, fines and fees made up only 0.3 percent of the municipal

budget, and $6 per capita.

Conclusion

Fines and fees are one of the most harmful ways Florida generates revenue. The people who are

charged fines and fees are mostly living in poverty and, when they cannot pay, get stuck in a

vicious cycle of court debt and spiraling justice consequences. The use of driver’s license

suspensions to punish people who cannot afford to pay their fines and fees only further impedes

their ability to achieve financial stability. Fines and fees may be a large revenue source for some

government agencies; however, as a whole they account for less than 1 percent of state revenues

and less than 2 percent of county revenues in almost all counties. Reliance on fines and fees is

also an unreliable practice. Not only have court revenues declined in the wake of the coronavirus

pandemic, but, by the state’s own admission, much of the outstanding court debt is ultimately

not collectible.

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Principles for change

In order to undo the harms of fines and fees, many governments around the country are

reconsidering their use of these revenues. Vera suggests several principles for reform as more

governments take on the necessary work to undo the harms of these practices:

▪ People who already struggle to afford their basic needs should not be made

financially worse off from a case in the criminal justice system. Governments

should eliminate all criminal legal fees and proactively ensure that all people with

incomes below a threshold, such as the local living wage, are not financially

harmed by fines. These changes should be made retroactive to apply to people

currently struggling to afford criminal justice debt.

▪ No one should face the loss of a driver’s license or other infringements on their

civic life because of fines and fees.

▪ Until the state eliminates these harmful fines and fees, money collected from

them should be used in ways that serve the people most negatively impacted by

the criminal justice system. At minimum, this money should be returned to the

General Fund, instead of to the budgets of the entities responsible for collecting

the funds.

▪ Governments should provide clear and transparent data on the amounts of fines

and fees assessed and collected and aggregated data on the demographics of the

people who are charged fines and fees.

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Methods

This brief relied on a range of data sources to calculate the total county and state

collections from fines and fees.

State revenue: The Florida Fiscal Portal provides data on revenue sent to state trust

funds. In 2018, courts sent $231 million from criminal and traffic fine and fee

revenue to state trust funds. Data from the state Department of Revenue shows

that the court clerks send $25 million in criminal and traffic fines and fees to the

state General Fund. Because not all state trust funds report data from fines and

fees consistently, this is a conservative estimate.

County revenue: The state Office of Economic and Demographic Research (EDR)

provides revenue data by county, disaggregated by several hundred types of

revenue. Vera summed all court-related revenues from the circuit criminal, county

criminal, civil traffic, and juvenile courts, in addition to judgments, fines, and

forfeits from criminal cases.

For the data on jail fees, Vera reviewed county

budget documents from each of Florida’s 67 counties to identify revenue received

from people within Florida’s jails. In each county, the data source is the most recent

available budget, fiscal year 2020 in most cases. Data consists of the most recent

fiscal year of actual receipts, typically 2018. Where actual spending data is not

available, Vera relied on budgeted spending figures. Because only 31 counties

provide data on jail-related fees in their budgets, and because not all counties

report this data consistently, this is a conservative estimate. EDR provides data on

county population and total county expenditures.

Town, city, and village revenue: EDR provides revenue data for Florida

municipalities, disaggregated by several hundred types of revenue. Vera summed

all revenue from local ordinance violations, judgment and fine revenue received by

the municipality, and a limited amount of other fine revenue for the 316

municipalities that report revenue from these sources. EDR provides data on

municipal population and total municipal expenditures.

Some jurisdictions contract with private companies that provide services, such as

probation supervision or telephone services within the jail, and profit from the

people who are required to use them.

In these cases, people pay fees to private

companies. The numbers in this brief reflect only the revenue that governments

receive from fines and fees, not the total amount that people pay or the amount

received by companies.

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Endnotes

1 For example, see Beth A. Colgan, “Beyond Graduation: Economic Sanctions and Structural

Reform,” Duke Law Journal 69 (2020), 1529-1583, https://perma.cc/A7R5-HR8U, which

states that low-income communities, communities of color, and other communities with high

barriers to political participation are more likely to be heavily policed and to be assessed

fines. People caught in the justice system typically have far lower incomes than the general

population. The median incomes of people right before they entered prison were $19,650

for men and $13,890 for women in 2015, or 48 percent and 58 percent, respectively, of the

incomes of those who were not incarcerated; Bernadette Rabuy and Daniel Kopf, Prisons of

Poverty: Uncovering the Pre-Incarceration Incomes of the Imprisoned (Northampton, MA:

Prison Policy Initiative, 2015). People who are charged economic sanctions find it difficult to

pay in light of other financial obligations and often miss payments; see Barry R. Ruback,

Stacy N. Hoskins, Alison C. Cares, and Ben Feldmeyer, “Perception and Payment of

Economic Sanctions: A Survey of Offenders,” Federal Probation 73, no. 3 (2006),

https://perma.cc/2N46-76SB. One survey of people under supervision for a felony

conviction in Jefferson County, Alabama, found that their median income was only $8,000

and that the majority had foregone basic necessities to cover court debt, as well as

borrowing from friends and family; see Foster Cook, The Burden of Criminal Justice Debt in

Alabama (TASC: Jefferson County’s Community Corrections Program, 2014),

https://perma.cc/7ZWA-ZRLE. In this context, fines and fees operate as a poverty trap with

little to no impact on financially stable households but a harmful one for those who struggle

to pay; see Steven Mello, “Speed Trap or Poverty Trap? Fines, Fees, and Financial

Wellbeing,” 2018, https://perma.cc/87QJ-4C9T.

2 Patricia Mazzei, “Ex-Felons in Florida Must Pay Fines Before Voting, Appeals Court Rules,”

New York Times, September 11, 2020, https://perma.cc/SH32-NV7Y.

3 The use of the police and the justice system for revenue generation intensifies the policing

of Black, brown, and poor neighborhoods and amplifies the threat of violence. Black

Americans, living in over-policed neighborhoods, are more likely to be issued tickets and

citations for municipal and traffic offenses, charges that permit greater officer discretion;

see Torie Atkinson, “A Fine Scheme: How Municipal Fines Become Crushing Debt in the

Shadow of the New Debtors’ Prisons,” Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, 51,

no. 1 (2015), 189-238, https://perma.cc/F762-B83Q. As in Ferguson, Missouri, the use of

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revenue-driven policing can erode community trust in the police and legal institutions while

diverting police attention away from serious crime. In fact, greater fiscal reliance on criminal

fine and fee revenue is associated with a lower violent crime clearance rate; see Rebecca

Goldstein, Michael W. Sances, and Hye Young You, “Exploitative Revenues, Law

Enforcement, and the Quality of Government Service,” Urban Affairs Review 56, no. 1

(2018), 5-31, https://perma.cc/JTJ6-UNVF.

4 Article V revenues for the Florida state government—a category that includes criminal,

traffic, and civil court fines and fees—were 9 percent lower than the pre-pandemic

projections for fiscal year 2020, a total drop of $20 million. Florida Office of Economic and

Demographic Research, Detailed Revenue Report July 2020, https://perma.cc/JFH5-QZ8F.

5 Florida Statutes Title XLVII; Chapter 938.05.

6 See Florida Court Clerks & Comptroller, Distribution Schedule of Court-Related Filing Fees,

Service Charges, Costs and Fines, 2019, for the full list of court-related fines and fees and

details of their statutory authority, https://perma.cc/QS3Z-HYZ4.

7 Florida Sheriffs Association, Subsistence Fees & Collection in Florida Jails,

https://perma.cc/QJJ2-6JJ8.

8 Florida Statutes Title XLVII, Chapter 948.09.

9 See for example Carson Whitelemons, Ashley Thomas, and Sarah Couture, Driving on

Empty (Fines and Fees Justice Center, October 2019), https://perma.cc/XDH9-NX2L, which

finds that Black people make up a disproportionate share of suspended licenses for

nonpayment, relative to their share of the population.

10 For example, a study from the Herald Tribune found that across Florida when a white

defendant and a Black defendant score the same number of points for the same offense

(based on criminal history, among other factors), the Black defendant is sentenced to a

longer prison stay in 60 percent of felony cases. See Josh Salman, Emily Le Coz, and

Elizabeth Johnson, “Florida’s Broken Sentencing System,” The Herald Tribune, December

12, 2016, https://perma.cc/6FJE-36R9. A 2013 study found that Black Floridians were more

than four times as likely as white Floridians to be arrested for marijuana possession. See

ACLU Foundation, The War on Marijuana in Black and White, 2013, table A5,

https://perma.cc/WN79-FLMX.

Vera Institute of Justice   13 
11  U.S. Census Bureau, Census Quickfacts: Florida, July 1, 2019, https://perma.cc/B8QR-
DVV6; and Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Data & Statistics: Arrest Data, 2019.   
12  ACLU, War on Marijuana;  The American Civil Liberties Union Racial Justice Program and 
the ACLU of Florida, Racial Disparities in Florida Safety Belt Law Enforcement, January 
2016, https://perma.cc/4QWM-FY8K.  
13  Whitelemons et al., Driving on Empty.  
14  Ben Conarck, “Pedestrian Tickets Lead to Hundreds of Suspended Driver’s Licenses in 
Jacksonville,” The Florida Times-Union Jacksonville.com, December 13, 2017, 
https://perma.cc/8P58-VXQP. For more on the criminalization of poverty in Florida, see 
Florida ACLU and University of Miami School of Law Human Rights Clinic, The Intersection 
Between Poverty and Florida’s Criminal Justice System: Homeless Rights, Bail Reform, 
Indigent Defendants’ Right to Counsel, and Restoration of Past Offenders’ Right to Vote, 
October 2017, https://perma.cc/5DSC-XMVA.   
15  The American Civil Liberties Union Racial Justice Program and the ACLU of Florida, Racial 
Disparities. 
16  Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability, Assessment, 
Collection, and Distribution of Fines and Fees in Criminal Cases, Report No 19-14, November 
2019, https://perma.cc/5YT3-W4C7. This amount is exclusive of restitution, which can sum 
in the thousands of dollars for some cases.  
17  Claire Goforth, “In Florida, Fees, Fines from Felonies Means Disenfranchised,” Juvenile 
Justice Information Exchange, August 28, 2019, https://perma.cc/E9SS-NBXJ.  
18  The minimum wage in Florida in 2020 was $8.56 per hour. Annual wage is calculated 
using a 40-hour work week and 52 weeks per year. In November 2020, voters approved a 
ballot measure to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2026.  
19  United Way of Florida, ALICE in Florida: A Financial Hardship Study, April 2020, 
https://perma.cc/ES3J-WS6G.   
20  Florida Chief Financial Officer, Statewide Summary of F.S. 939.185, Assessment of 
Additional Court Costs FY 2018, https://perma.cc/5JYD-U5X5.  

Vera Institute of Justice   14 
21  Data is from 34 counties that report revenues on “State Court Facility Surcharge ($30)” 
to the Florida Office of Economic and Demographic Research, Expenditures and Revenues 
Reported by Florida's County Governments, 2018, https://perma.cc/SH5J-R8P8.  
22  U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida Tallahassee Division, Kelvin Jones 
et al. v. Ron DeSantis, etc., et al. Exhibit A: Expert Report of Daniel A. Smith, Ph.D., 
https://perma.cc/Y4VT-3KG5.  
23  Whitelemons et al., Driving on Empty. 
24  Associated Press, “Fed Judge Rules Florida Can't Stop Poor Felons from Voting,” ABC 
News, May 25, 2020, https://perma.cc/U4DR-8N8K.  
25  Patricia Mazzei, “A Major Trial for Voting Rights in Florida Is Happening on Video Chat,” 
The New York Times, April 27, 2020, https://perma.cc/4HDV-DXEA.   
26  While the collections rate is calculated as amount collected in 2018 divided by amount 
assessed in 2018, the amount collected includes amounts that were assessed in 2017 and 
before. See Florida Court Clerk & Comptrollers, 2018 Annual Assessments and Collections 
Report, https://perma.cc/N4AG-GBN2.  
27  Ibid.  
28  Florida Statutes Title V, Chapter 28:246.  
29  Florida Clerks of Court Operations Corporation, PIE Committee Meeting, February 5, 
2020, pg. 38, https://perma.cc/JX9X-ETTQ.  
30  Ibid. 
31  Florida Office of the State Courts Administrator, Florida Courts, https://perma.cc/N2N5-
H5KK.   
32  For more on the distribution of each fine and fee revenue source, see Florida Court 
Clerks & Comptroller, Distribution Schedule. 
33  Florida Statutes, Title XLVII, Chapter 948:15; Florida Department of Corrections, 
Probation Services, https://perma.cc/SRU5-DDQ6.  
34  Leon County, FL, Leon County Fiscal Year 2020 Adopted Budget, 
http://cms.leoncountyfl.gov/portals/0/OMB/Docs/Budgets/FY2020AdoptedBudgetV2.pdf.  

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35 This includes fines and fees that are not considered criminal justice fines and fees in this

report, such as filing fees in civil court and mortgage foreclosure fees. Florida Court Clerks &

Comptrollers, Clerks Duties and Services, https://www.flclerks.com/page/ClerksDuties.

36 MGT Consulting Group, Florida Clerks of Court Study, November 15, 2019,

https://perma.cc/8GHD-5ERG.

37 Florida Office of Economic and Demographic Research, Detailed Revenue Report July

2020.

38 Florida Department of Corrections, Annual Report Fiscal Year 2017-18,

https://perma.cc/H57Z-LLKP. For more detail on the commissary costs that are collected,

see Florida Economic & Demographic Research, Revenue Impact Results 07/07/2020, pg.

608, https://perma.cc/S3AU-G4FF.

39 For total budget, see Florida Legislature, Fiscal Analysis in Brief, 2017 Legislative

Sessions, page 11, https://perma.cc/N54V-VA2Z.

40 Florida Office of Economic & Demographic Research, Expenditures and Revenues

Reported by Florida's County Governments, https://perma.cc/2L72-9WLY.

41 For more information on private probation in Florida, see Human Rights Watch, Set Up

to Fail: The Impact of Offender-Funded Private Probation on the Poor, February 2018,

https://perma.cc/28UZ-XN8X.

Vera Institute of Justice 16

Credits

Acknowledgments

This research was made possible by the generous support of Arnold Ventures. Views

expressed in this article are those of the authors. The authors would like to thank Bex Allen

for their work on this project and Léon Digard, Abbi Leman, Kate Epstein, and Elizabeth

Crooks for their assistance in editing and formatting the report.

An electronic version of this report is posted on Vera’s website at https://www.vera.org/the-h igh-

price-of-using-justice-fines-and-fees-to-fund-gov ernment.

For more information about this report, contact Chris Mai, senior research associate, at

[email protected].