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Copyright © 2016 Albuquerque Journal

That simple $10 parking ticket in Albuquerque, if neglected, will suck $107 from your wallet, $77 of it in court fees.

That’s bad news for you, but a cash windfall for six projects and programs ranging from Metro Court construction cost to jury paychecks to classes for domestic violence offenders.

Additional programs are funded with fees from a traffic citation, such as a speeding ticket – for which the lowest fine is $20 and court costs are $65-$85. The traffic ticket fees go to fund teen courts, anti-DWI classes and a program for people with a brain injury.

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While the fees are collected just one case at a time, the total isn’t small change for the state.

More than $25 million was collected statewide in 2015 from 25 separate fees that are added to parking, traffic, criminal and civil cases.

Such fees can add up to hundreds of dollars on one case and, left unpaid, except for fees on parking tickets, can land someone in jail.

But even those who don’t go to jail over an unpaid ticket still face what the Conference of State Court Administrators cautions is, in some ways, an “alternate form of taxation.”

How it works

Fines for an Albuquerque parking ticket go to the city, which last year brought in $698,471. That wasn’t anywhere near what the city spent on parking enforcement: $4.2 million.

The city parking division does not get any portion of the fees added onto unpaid parking tickets that are referred to Metro Court. Between 2013 and 2015, unpaid city parking tickets generated $5,194,035 in court fees owed, though there isn’t a record of how much of that was collected.

Once a ticket reaches a court and a driver is found guilty, the driver must pay the court, including fines and fees.

The fines are funneled to the city or state. That, for the state last year, was more than $4.2 million put into the state general fund.

The fees, $25 million last year, are sent to the state Administrative Office of the Courts, which then sends the money to the authorized program or account set up by state lawmakers over the past 30 years.

User fee?

Some view these fees as a “user fee” to avoid additional taxation.

“The fees are so the burden is not on all taxpayers, but the users of the court,” said Robert Padilla, CEO of Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court, the state’s busiest court.

Some of the fees collected pay for law enforcement forensic labs for testing in DWI and criminal cases. Some fees pay for jury and witness expenses. Nearly $5 million was raised last year to pay for improved technology for electronic case records. And the state’s third most lucrative fee, which brought in $4.1 million last year, goes to pay off the bonds issued to finance Metro Court construction.

The Magistrate Court Warrant fee, the state’s fourth most lucrative fee, basically pays magistrate court employees to collect fees. The $100 fee added onto warrants raised more than $3 million last year. The remainder after paying for these employees goes to reimburse police agencies for enforcing the warrants.

Padilla said that, without the fees, most of which he noted don’t come directly to the court collecting it, the “budget to run that court would have to be a lot bigger,” meaning lawmakers would have to give courts more tax money annually from the general fund.

Or revenue?

Artie Pepin, director of the state’s Administrative Office of the Courts and a member of the national policy group Conference of State Court Administrators, said the conference and national judge groups advocate against courts serving as revenue generators, especially for programs and facilities unrelated to court.

Legislators across the nation, he said, tend to create fees that don’t relate to court procedures.

For example, New Mexico has a fee for the Brain Injury Fund, which pays for social worker services, mental and medical health care, transportation, and house and auto modifications for people with brain injuries. The program last year received $703,400 from the $5 fee added onto most criminal court cases, except parking tickets.

“I don’t think a court would set a policy to set a fee to fund brain injury research,” Pepin said. “While it’s a really important program, it doesn’t have much to do with courts.”

Fees also pay for anti-DWI and domestic violence education classes. A fee added by lawmakers this year collects $50-$75 off criminal convictions to give to victims of crimes.

“We do have some fees that I would say are (unrelated to) the functions of courts that courts collect just, I guess, because it’s a convenient way to fund important programs,” Pepin said. “But best practice says, and we would say, fees should really relate to what courts need to do for people.”

Big money fees

The state’s most lucrative fee category goes to pay for court automation and technology improvements at all courts. Last year, the Court Automation fee raised nearly $5 million.

The state’s second most lucrative fee, called the Correction Fee, pays for adult and juvenile facilities, operations and transportation, ankle monitors, and addiction and mental health treatment. It is added onto a variety of criminal and civil cases, and last year raised $4.3 million.

The third-largest chunk of fees goes to pay for Metro Court. Adding between $10 and $100 to a variety of court cases around the state, the Court Facilities and some Docket Fees raised $4.1 million last year, according to the AOC.

Those two fees will revert to the general fund once the court construction bonds are paid off.

The Finance Authority said last week that $30,195,000 remains on the original $83 million Metro Court bill, which was at the center of a construction cost scandal in which some of the state’s most powerful politicians stole $4.2 million.

Two other fees, $22 on civil case filings and $25 on criminal appeals, go to the state’s general fund. But those fees aren’t funneled through the Administrative Office of the Courts, so the total collected is not available from the AOC.

Judges also benefit from fees.

A Judicial Retirement fee of $10-$38 on civil cases raised nearly $2 million to pay for retirement for judges.

But Pepin stresses that New Mexico lawmakers have created a fee structure that doesn’t perversely incentivize judges to give certain verdicts.

“We (courts) should be funded by tax money and not fees for various reasons, not the least is you don’t want there to be any appearance that judges find people guilty to keep their doors open,” Pepin said.