What happens if you lose your license because you can't afford to pay a ticket and get slapped with a bunch of fines?

What happens if you lose your job because you can't drive to work but are still on the hook?

What happens if the judge who ordered the punishment gets his or her paycheck from the town that's collecting those fees?

New Jersey's municipal courts -- the places where residents fight parking tickets and other low-level offenses -- are too often used as cash machines that squeeze poor defendants for fines and fees with threats of jail time or license suspensions, according to a new report from the state judiciary.

It found that abuse of laws allowing local courts to impose contempt-of-court fines and several recent cases of misconduct by municipal judges showed a need for change in New Jersey's town court system, which collected $400 million in fines and fees last year alone.

The report recommended 49 measures to rein in the practice and restore public faith in New Jersey's municipal courts, some of which have already been taken up by the Supreme Court and others that have prompted proposed legislative fixes.

It was released Tuesday by a committee convened by the state Supreme Court in response to scrutiny of trouble in New Jersey's local court system, including a series of investigative reports from the Asbury Park Press.

A 2017 report from the New Jersey State Bar Association also found a "crisis" in confidence among lawyers in the independence of local judges.

The Supreme Court committee acknowledged the growing "public perception" that municipal courts "operate with a goal to fill the town's coffers" which was "contrary to the purpose of the courts."

Across New Jersey's 565 towns are 316 courts that handle cases for one town, 173 courts that share services among a few towns and 24 joint municipal courts that handle bigger caseloads. Those courts are overseen by 314 judges, many of whom are appointed by the towns in which they serve.

That arrangement can create an unnecessary conflict of interest when defendants are unable to pay court-ordered fines and fees and local governments assess a judge's performance based on revenue collected by the court, the report found.

Between 2015 and and 2017, local judges ordered $22 million in "discretionary contempt assessments." The committee called that figure "excessive" and found it sometimes had "more to do with generating revenue than the fair administration of justice."

The report also broke out some real-world examples of how fines and fees can pile up for those without the means to pay.

A defendant given a $100 marijuana possession fine could find himself facing more than $1,000 in court costs thanks in large part to a variety of fees. A driver issued a $54 parking ticket could be on the hook for $192 if she doesn't immediately pay up.

The committee wrote it was "deeply concerned about what can be a never-ending imposition of mandatory financial obligations upon defendants that extend beyond the fine that is associated with the violation."

The review committee recommended sweeping changes, including more oversight of municipal judges, better guidelines for sentencing alternatives, a more robust system for setting up payment plans and allowing more defendants to pay off debts through community service.

It also recommended fixes that would need the state Legislature to take action, including limiting a judge's ability to revoke a driver's license or issue an arrest warrant simply because fines or fees were not paid.

State Sen. Declan O'Scanlon, R-Monmouth County, said Tuesday he plans to introduce legislation taking up some of the recommendations.

"Municipal courts should be about the administration of justice, not a profit center to plug holes in local governments' budgets," he said in a statement.

John E. Keefe, Jr., the president of the state bar association, said the proposed reforms "will elevate the experience of the public, who can come to court to have their case resolved knowing local politics and financial pressures are not driving the judicial process."

A judiciary spokesman said Tuesday that New Jersey's Supreme Court has already taken up some of the recommendations, adopting rule changes that will limit monetary sanctions on defendants who can't pay fines or fail to appear in municipal court.

The report comes months after the chief justice of the state Supreme Court cited "disturbing practices" by local judges accused of abusing their power to impose fines and mishandling court fees.

In April, New Jersey Chief Justice Stuart Rabner sent a memo to the state's municipal and Superior Court judges following the criminal conviction of one local judge and a federal court decision that found another local court's treatment of poor defendants "effectively extorts payment" from their family and friends.

Rabner cited the case of a former municipal judge in nine Monmouth County towns, Richard Thompson, who admitted to falsifying about 4,000 court records to redirect fines from county to municipal coffers. Thompson later pleaded guilty to charges related to the scheme, in which he suspended fines for motor vehicle tickets and converted the charge to contempt of court so the money would be paid to the towns that employed him rather than the county government.

In another case in Burlington Township, a man who told Judge Dennis P. McInerney he could not afford to immediately pay a $239 ticket for flicking a cigarette out of his car window was ordered jailed on the spot.

The man, Anthony Kneisser, filed a lawsuit later backed by the New Jersey chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. U.S. District Judge Noel L. Hillman found in March that the court had violated the man's constitutional rights by immediately jailing him instead of allowing him to pay in installments.

In his memo, Rabner reminded judges that U.S. Supreme Court precedent gives defendants a right to a hearing over whether they can afford to pay fines and fees imposed by a court.

S.P. Sullivan may be reached at ssullivan@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter. Find NJ.com on Facebook.