Palmer Division of the District Court Department-Review of Probation Supervision Fees: Transactions and Monitoring of Fulfillment by Probationers

This is a state audit of how Palmer District Court handled probation supervision fees and related community service from July 1, 2012 through December 31, 2013.

“This report presents the results of our review of PDC specifically.”

Auditors checked whether the court properly assessed, recorded, monitored, and enforced probation supervision fees.

“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.”

These fees are required by law for people on probation, unless the court properly documents a hardship and orders community service instead.

“When an individual is placed on probation, Section 87A of Chapter 276 of the Massachusetts General Laws requires courts to assess the individual a $50 (administrative) or $65 (supervised) monthly probation supervision fee (PSF).”

For the public, this matters because poor tracking and incorrect fee orders can mean the state loses money or the court cannot easily tell whether people are meeting court requirements.

“As a result, the Palmer Division of the District Court Department (PDC) cannot readily determine how many community-service hours are owed, what community service amounts to in dollars, and whether offenders will be able to fulfill the requirements of court orders on schedule.”

The auditor found two main problems: community service tracking was not effective, and some probation fees were ordered incorrectly.

“Below is a summary of our findings and recommendations, with links to each page listed.”

The auditor recommended that the court centralize community-service tracking, report hours regularly, stop improper one-time probation fees, and document hardship waivers correctly.

“PDC should establish a centralized method of tracking community service performed.”

The audit found that actual probation-fee collections were about 68% of the estimated amount that could have been collected after accounting for community service.

“Taking into account the number of individuals required to perform community service, PDC’s actual transmittals were approximately 68% of the estimated potential PSF revenue.”

A probation supervision fee is a monthly court fee for someone on probation; if paying would be too hard, the court can waive it only under certain conditions and require 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.”