Concord Division of the District Court Department - Review of Probation Supervision Fees

This is a state audit report about how the Concord District Court handled probation supervision fees and community service for people on probation from July 1, 2012 through December 31, 2013.

“This report presents the results of our audit testing at CDC specifically.”

The Auditor reviewed whether the Trial Court and selected district courts were properly assessing, recording, and monitoring probation supervision fees.

“Our overall audit of the Trial Court’s administration of PSFs (Report No. 2014-5160-3J) included audit testing at 16 district-court locations, including CDC, to assess the process the Trial Court has established for PSFs, determine whether PSF-related transactions were properly documented in court records, and determine whether probationers were adequately monitored to ensure that they were fulfilling the PSF requirement.”

If fees are waived without proper findings or community service is not tracked, the state may lose money and probationers may not be treated consistently.

“As a result, the Commonwealth may be forgoing PSFs that probationers would have been able to pay.”

For an ordinary citizen, this matters because courts should follow the same rules for everyone, keep accurate records, and make sure public money or required community service is handled properly.

“The objective of our work at each court location was limited to determining the extent to which the court was complying with the responsibilities established by Section 87A of Chapter 276 of the General Laws, as well as guidance issued by the Trial Court; the Office of the Commissioner of Probation (OCP); and the court location itself, if it had issued any.”

Auditors found two main problems: fee waivers were not always handled as the law requires, and community service was not tracked or valued correctly.

“The court records the value of community-service hours using the wrong rates.”

The court said it would have judges document waiver decisions, require community service when fees are waived, improve reporting, and use the proper community-service rates going forward.

“Community-Service hours will henceforth be calculated at the statutory rate.”

The audit is significant because Concord transmitted $383,260 in probation supervision fees during the period, but that was only about 55% of estimated potential revenue, and weak tracking made it harder to know what was owed or completed.

“CDC’s actual transmittals were approximately 55% of the estimated potential PSF revenue.”

A probation supervision fee is a monthly charge that many people on probation must pay; if a judge properly waives it because payment would be too hard, the person must usually do unpaid community service instead.

“A PSF is a monthly fee that judges are statutorily required to assess for a criminal offender placed on probation (a probationer), to be paid for the length of his or her probation term.”