News
PA Courts Collect $471 million in 2017
News Article
February 25, 2018
State coffers receive $227 million; local governments and crime victims also benefit
Pennsylvania courts collected nearly $471 million in fees, fines, costs and restitution in 2017, including a record $114 million paid online through PAePay®.
PAePay® allows people to conveniently make payments via the Internet with a debit or credit card. Online payments increased by 11 percent this year, with a 13 percent increase in the number of transactions or users.
Most of the money collected by the courts is sent to state and local governments and victims of crime; a small portion of the money is sent to various entities such as airports, parking authorities and libraries. Over the past 10 years, the judiciary has collected over $4.6 billion.
The judiciary’s case management computer systems have helped the courts improve collections by:
- Generating customized court payment delinquency letters
- Sharing information with PennDOT for suspension of the driver’s licenses of defendants failing to pay court costs related to traffic violations
- Providing defendant case financial data to outside collection agencies, which are currently used by 44 counties
- Facilitating a statewide, collection agency contract, at the request of PA counties.
The state received $227.3 million of the total $470.6 million collected by the courts. Counties received $157.5 million and municipalities $44 million to support local government programs. Crime victims received a total of $37.8 million in restitution, and various entities received $4 million. (See Financial Dashboards for more information.)
The money distributed to support government programs and crime victims came from fees, fines, costs and restitution collected by 516 magisterial district courts and the criminal divisions of the 67 Common Pleas Courts and the Philadelphia Municipal Court.
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Media contact: Kimberly Bathgate, 717-231-3331