Audit questions collection of fines

Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2002 | 9:35 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Municipal and Justice courts are doing a fairly good job in collecting fines, but District Courts are turning in a poor performance, a legislative audit said.

Deputy Legislative Auditor Ian Allan said Tuesday an examination of 23 Justice and Municipal courts showed an overall collection rate for fines and administrative assessments at 81 percent. That's up from 63 percent in 1995.

But collection rates at the court system's two largest District Courts, in Clark and Washoe counties, showed a collection rate of only 23 percent. That's up from 13 percent in 1995.

"A direct consequence of the lack of collection or enforcement action is offenders not fulfilling their sentences," the audit reported. "An additional consequence is that revenues collected by the District Courts benefiting both state and local governments may be less than they could be."

Governments may be losing millions of dollars because of ineffective efforts to collect fines and administrative assessments.

Chief Justice Bill Maupin of the Nevada Supreme Court told the Legislative Audit Committee that more than 95 percent of people convicted of felonies in District Court are indigent. If they are sent to prison, they can't pay, he said.

Maupin said if they are placed on probation, they must pay a fee to the state for probation supervision and make restitution to the victim -- and then comes the collection of the fine.

The audit also found Justice and Municipal courts are not doing a good job when they issue bench warrants for a criminal suspect who fails to show up for a hearing for such violations as a traffic ticket.

"Testing revealed 57 percent of the citations issued to out-of-state offenders when bench warrants were issued did not result in a payment," according to the report.

"Bench warrants were more effective for in-state offenders, although 35 percent of those citations were not paid," Allan said.

The audit also said there were four embezzlements in the lower courts totaling $90,000 due to inadequate internal accounting controls.