$40 MILLION IN UNCOLLECTED JUSTICE OF THE PEACE COURTS FINES AND FEES; COUNTY TABLES AWARD TO LINEBARGER

By Juan Montoya
With an estimated $30 to $40 million in delinquent fines and fees from the eight Justice of the Peace offices still uncollected by the firm of Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson, the Cameron County Commissioners Court tabled a recommendation by an evaluation committee to award it the contract.

But that total is just an estimate, the court learned, because the real number may be more than that since there are three "balances" that may be out there. Each court keeps its own delinquent balance and when they can't collect it, hands them over to the Cameron County Clerk that keeps the accounts for 90 days before handing them off to Linebarger.

"So there are actually three different balances we have to look at," said Pct. 2 Commissioner Joey Lopez. "We really don't know how much is out there in delinquent fines."

Two Linebarger representatives said they did not know the amount of delinquent fines they had collected over the last 13 years her firm has had the contract.

Cameron County Clerk Sylvia Perez-Garza did not have the amount of delinquent fees and fines the JPs had sent to her office for collections.

The Linebarger representative said her company had inherited $20 uin uncollected fines when they were awarded the contract in 2006.

In response to questions by County Judge Eddie Treviño, she said that in the last 10 years they had collected about $2 million each year.

"That's about 5 percent," Treviño pointed out. "When you took over you had $20 in uncollected fines and now that has grown to $40 million. We're not moving in the right direction There's a lot we could do with that money. We could give a break to our taxpayers."

But that was about par for the course beause JP 5-1 Sally Gonzalez said she had stopped sending delinquent cases to the county clerk and started collecting them from her office instead. But like Linebarger and Garza-Perez, she didn not know the exact numer of cases and the amount of fines she had collected.


In response to an information request by El Rrun-Rrun back in 2015 to the Cameron County Auditor's Officefor a report of the uncollected fines levied by the amount stood at $12.3 million. (Click on graphic at right to enlarge.)

It also indicated that in the last two years before (2012 to 2015), the county's JPs have racked up a not-inconsiderable total of $12,337,360 in uncollected fines.

When we asked some county administrators why this was, they said that when they inquired of the JPs, the judges pointed their finger at the constables. When they asked the constables, the constables pointed the finger at the JPS.

JP Juan Mendoza, of Los Fresnos, said that only one JP was invited to sit on the committee and said that all the JPs should have been allowed to participate because "we're the ones who know what's out there."

The courts are styled:

1-01 for JP Pct. 1 Benny Ochoa Jr.

2-01 for JP Pct. 2, Place 1 Linda Salazar

2-02 for JP Pct. 2, Place 2 Jonathan Gracia (who inherited the two-year total from Erin Garcia.)

2-03 for JP Pct. 2, Place 3 Mary Esther Sorola

3-01 for JP Pct. 3, Place 1 Guadalupe "Lupe" Ayala

3-02 for JP Pct. 3, Place 2 David Garza

4-01 for JP Pct. 4 Juan Mendoza

5-01 for JP Pct. 5, Place 1 Sally Gonzalez

5-02 for JP Pct. 5, Place 2 Eloy Cano

5-03 for JP Pct. 5, Place 3 Mike Trejo

*It is worth noting that in just the past two years before the 2015 info request, both Brownsville JP courts under Linda Salazar and then-JP Erin Garcia just about doubled the total amount of uncollected fines in their jurisdiction.

In Salazar's case, she racked up $2,262,254 to bring the total amount of uncollected fines in her court to $5,313,064. In Garcia's case, her $2,639,409 in uncollected fines raised the total to $5,512,256, which was then inherited by Gracia.

Where those two courts stand now is anyone's guess.

The process for collections – except for Gonzalez, who collects them herself – is for the court to try to collect, then if unable, to turn them over to the county clerk for collection. That office has 90 days to attempt collecting and, if unable, sends them to Linebarger. From there, they fall into the Cameron County Black Hole.

The commissioners tabled the item and the award recommended by the evaluation and tabulation committee and opted instead to allow the three companies vying for the collections contract to make presentations before the court.