Last year during the 2025 legislative session Oklahoma lawmakers passed groundbreaking legislation, HB 1460, that eliminated six criminal justice system fees. This effort is the broadest Republican-led fee elimination bill to date.
Fees not only harm the individuals that they are assessed against but also the governments they are intended to fund. They are unstable sources of revenue that often cost more to collect than the amount of revenue that is generated. Oklahoma agency officials and lawmakers have recognized the instability of fee revenue. Both the Oklahoma Department of Corrections and the Bureau of Narcotics absorbed the projected budget impacts from fee elimination. They were able todo so because a majority of the fees that were being assessed were not actually collected and they had previously shifted funds from elsewhere in their budgets to cover the collections shortfalls and bring greater stability into their budgets
Oklahoma is not the only state coming to the realization that fees are an unstable funding source. This legislative session Vermont’s Department of Corrections recognized that they were spending substantially more to collect a supervision fee than they were actually bringing in and the deficit amount was only increasing each fiscal year.
OVERALL COST VS. REVENUE SNAPSHOT
Vermont legislators responded by passing H. 635 which eliminated the Department of Corrections supervisory fee. This bill was not spearheaded by advocates, but was a response by the bill sponsor to the information presented by the Department of Corrections in front of the House Committee on Corrections and Institutions.
Both of these examples show how fee elimination did not harm the government and how it actually was done to help save money and redirect strained resources. There are additional positive impacts of fee elimination to the government as well. Research shows that jurisdictions relying more heavily on fine and fee revenue are less likely to focus on critical activities, such as clearing violent crime cases. Eliminating fees also allows government staff to focus on other important tasks instead of attempting to collect largely uncollectible fees.
The bottom line is that if governments want to actually support their law enforcement agencies, fees need to be replaced in baseline budgets with more reliable sources of funding, like general revenue appropriations. Moving away from such an unstable source can not only improve budgets but also strengthen communities and public safety. Governments that rely on fees as a revenue source are violating the very tenets of public safety, requiring people to get caught up in the system in order to help fund that same system.
To learn more information on budgets and how advocates can drive reforms like the examples above see FFJC’s Budget Series Webinars and six part blog series, Reforming the Revenue Machine: An Advocate's Guide to Court Fines and Fees.
