Bill allows court to dip into trust funds

As part of the efforts to raise badly-needed revenues, the Legislature will authorize the Superior Court to make money from the trust funds temporarily entrusted to the judiciary as well as from individuals convicted of criminal offense.

Under a bill offered by Rep. Heinz Hofschneider, chair of the House committee on Health, Education and Welfare, the court will be allowed to deposit trust funds in the banks at no cost to the government to earn interests whose proceeds shall then be used to administer the program.

Likewise, the measure will impose an assessment on all persons who are convicted of a criminal offense, ranging from $10 in the case of an infraction to as much as $400 for a felony.

Hofschneider said House Bill 11-420 is intended to assist the Superior Court in dealing with sharp decline in appropriations from the government in view of the worsening financial crisis besetting the Commonwealth.

“The increasing obligations of the court to administer this fiduciary trust … is eating into their appropriations and all they are asking is for such legislation so that… they can be able to offset some of the expenses attributed to such intent,” he told reporters yesterday.

The judicial branch is prohibited by law to earn money from the trust funds, which include monies awaiting disbursement in cases of heirship, estate settlement and others.

But it spends portion of its budget to administer the accounts which are not earning interests and recipients of these monies are not entitled to payment of such interest, burdening taxpayers who do not benefit at all from the program. The funds currently amount to more than $500,000.

“Because the law does not authorize them to put the money into interest bearing accounts in the banks, it is losing out on the interests itself,” Hofschneider said, adding that revenues to be generated from the measure depend on the interest rates offered by local banks.

On the other hand, the proposal to assess convicts with specified fee aims to help the judiciary to raise money for its Judicial Building Fund Account.

The assessment shall be imposed in all convictions, regardless of whether a fine was imposed as part of the defendant’s sentence, except in the case of uncontested traffic infractions which are paid on or before the court appearance date where it will be waived.

The convict who fails to pay the fee will face sanction on his sentence, according to the bill.

In sponsoring the measure, Hofschneider also noted increasing expenditures by the court due to the mounting need for appointment of counsel for indigent persons as well as interpreters to both assist lawyers in communicating with their clients as well as translating during trials.