The Department of Financial Services (DFS), through the Treasury and Revenues Division (formerly Yolo County Collection Services), collects fees assessed by the Public Defender's Office (Public Defender) for representation of individuals in court proceedings, as well as fines and fees assessed by the Probation Department (Probation) for its probationers.
There are two respective penal codes that pertain to the County's ability to collect such fees.
- Penal Code 987.8 (Attachment A) requires the defendant to appear before a County Officer designated by the County in order to determine if the defendant owns or has an interest in real property or has the present ability to pay all or a portion of the legal assistance provided.
- Penal Code Section 1203.1(b) (Attachment B) requires the probation officer or an authorized representative to determine the payments and manner payments should be made to the County based on the defendants ability to pay for the reasonable cost of any probation supervision, conditional sentence, term of mandatory sentence, or conducting any pre-plea investigation or preparing any pre-plea investigation or report or pre-sentence investigation or report or processing jurisdictional transfers or request for interstate compacts.
In the past, Yolo County Collection Services (YCCS) has served as the County Officer in order to perform the determinations of whether defendants have the ability to pay Public Defender fees and have granted full or partial waivers of fees. This has generally been performed by determining that the defendant is on a social services program However, this standard cannot be applied to all cases to determine whether an individual has the ability to pay the assessed fees.
Yolo County Collection Services also performs collection for Probation clients, and there are periodically requests for fee waivers or assessment for the ability to pay probation fees as well. These have been referred to Probation for assessment, and Yolo County Collection Services has not granted fee waivers until a Probation Officer indicates that it is appropriate to waive the clients fees. The determination of ability to pay has been performed by Probation Officers utilizing case-by-case judgments.
Often, the clients of Probation have been former clients of the Public Defender and these two separate processes for approval of waiver of fees based on ability to pay has at times led to confusion for clients. As a result, Public Defender, Probation and DFS have had detailed discussions on approaches to coordinate and standardize these disparate processes. It was determined that a income/asset based threshold to determine ability to pay for both clientele, administered by DFS, would ensure consistency and objectivity. The Yolo Superior Courts already recognizes YCCS as the authorized County Officer related to Public Defender fees, but this change requires Probation to delegate the authority to the DFS (which is planned to be achieved through a departmental MOU) as their authorized representative to conduct the ability to pay assessment for Probation clients.
In review of several other ability-to-pay programs and objective standards, Probation and Public Defender agreed upon an income-based threshold of 200% of the Federal Poverty Level as an appropriate ability-to-pay threshold. This threshold is also in line with the 200% of poverty threshold used in determination for CalFRESH benefits. In addition, DFS will be required to obtain information on any property or asset ownership and related obligations to determine whether assets are sufficient to determine ability to pay in-lieu of income under Penal Code 978.8.
Below, the table demonstrates the income thresholds at 200% of the Federal Poverty level (for Calendar Year 2018) based on family size:
| Family Size |
HHS Federal Poverty Level - Family Income (100%) |
HHS Federal Poverty Level - Family Income (200%) |
| 1 |
$12,140 |
$24,280 |
| 2 |
$16,460 |
$32,920 |
| 3 |
$20,780 |
$41,560 |
| 4 |
$25,100 |
$50,200 |
| 5 |
$29,420 |
$58,840 |
| 6 |
$33,740 |
$67,480 |
| 7 |
$38,060 |
$76,120 |
| 8 |
$42,380 |
$84,760 |
Should the Board adopt this standard for ability to pay, the collection of the above mentioned fees may decline. The current data collected on clients of the Public Defender and Probation do not contain income or other statistics to determine how much of the existing population might be eligible for fee waiver and an estimated amount of revenue loss. However, summarized below is the total outstanding fees from each category that would be eligible for waiver, and notes the amount that was collected during the most recent fiscal year ended June 30, 2018:
| Department |
Fee Title |
# of Outstanding Client Accounts |
Outstanding Fee as June 30, 2018 |
Amounts collected during FY 17-18 |
Collection % during FY 17-18 |
| Public Defender |
Representation Fee |
34,216 |
$734,425 |
$44,428 |
6.05% |
| Public Defender |
Legal Assistance (Private) |
1,144 |
$27,677 |
$1,948 |
7.03% |
| Public Defender |
Legal Assistance (Public) |
25,020 |
$1,224,415 |
$66,108 |
5.40% |
| Public Defender |
Adult Felony Settlement |
882 |
$203,932 |
$9,223 |
4.52% |
| Public Defender |
Adult Misdemeanor Settlement |
1,202 |
$201,758 |
$11,870 |
5.88% |
| Public Defender |
Post Judgment Fee |
4,466 |
$391,296 |
$23,691 |
6.05% |
| Public Defender |
Juvenile Delinquency |
8 |
$0 |
$0 |
0% |
| Public Defender |
Juvenile Post Judgment Fee |
84 |
$0 |
$146 |
100% |
| Public Defender |
PDRF |
68 |
$1,798 |
$0 |
0% |
| Public Defender |
Specialty Court Fee |
446 |
$37,652 |
$2,903 |
7.71% |
| Public Defender Total |
|
|
$2,822,956 |
$160,321 |
5.68% |
| Probation |
Pre-Sentence Investigation |
5,516 |
$2,335,181 |
$110,301 |
4.72% |
| Probation |
Electronic |
331 |
$10,953 |
$3,500 |
31.95% |
| Probation |
Installment Fee |
5,646 |
$64,659 |
$3,316 |
5.12% |
| Probation |
Interstate Compact |
395 |
$77,141 |
$8,451 |
10.95% |
| Probation |
Services Collection |
435 |
$12,429 |
$5,023 |
40.41% |
| Probation |
Fee |
1,205 |
$54,119 |
$6,072 |
11.21% |
| Probation |
Adult Fee |
11,061 |
$3,192,505 |
$184,501 |
5.77% |
| Total Probation* |
|
|
$5,746,991 |
$321,167 |
5.58% |
*Jail Release Work Program which is an optional program and Juvenile Care and Support fees (broadly waived by previous legislation) are excluded as this penal code is not applicable to those fees.
Waivers will be processed upon submission of required forms and information from the applicant, but not all eligible individuals will apply for waivers or have a reassessment of their ability to pay. At this point in time, neither department is requesting any change in their budget as part of implementation of this standard. However Public Defender and Probation will evaluate the impacts of any revenue loss as the waiver standard is implemented and provide updates as part of the mid-year, third quarter, and other appropriate budgetary updates. |