Penalty Assessment Fees

We realize that the monthly reporting places additional burdens upon your staff. To this end, we have developed a court report forms that will perform the calculations for you. After completing, you can send it with your payment. Please choose the correct form for your situation.

Academy City form is ONLY for Norman, Oklahoma City, and Tulsa.

Each of you have been very supportive to faithfully collect the fees that fund training for your peace officers. We will continue our commitment to you by responding to your inquiries promptly and offering our assistance with questions or calculations.

Please do not hesitate to contact:

Shawna Murphy (405) 239-5177
shawna.murphy@cleet.state.ok.us

Justin Canada (405) 239-5137
justin.canada@cleet.state.ok.us

September, 2007

Dear Court Clerks,

All reports and correspondence should be sent to the address below:

CLEET
2401 Egypt Road
Ada, OK 74820-0669

Fees have not changed.

Be sure and send the payments in sufficient time for us to receive them before the 25th of the month to avoid late fee penalties.

Penalty Fee Reporting Forms can be filled out online and printed. The forms, hyperlinked in the right hand column of this page, are in Adobe PDF format. You will need Acrobat Reader to view and fill out these forms. You can download the reader by clicking on the Adobe link in the left column.

Each of the forms will do the math calculations for you. Left click your mouse to insert the cursor onto a line. Use the tab key to move from line to line on the form. The most common mistake with the web forms are courts using the incorrect form. Please make sure that you have selected the proper form before completing it.

For smaller courts, please remember that a report of "No Activity" must be completed if your town has a police department established, but you are temporarily without any officers, if there were no cases, or court was not held, etc.

1. The current fee rate is ten dollars ($10.00). Municipal and town courts retain $.08 per penalty fee as an administrative fee. County courts do not retain a portion of the fee. County Courts should collect a fee of $4.50 for speeding violation of 1-10 mph over the posted limit instead of the normal $10.00 fee. The fee remains $10.00 for all other violations.
2. Seatbelt Violations: In February, 2004 the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals rendered an unpublished opinion holding that the CLEET Penalty Assessment fee, AFIS fee and Forensic fee cannot be collected on violations of the seatbelt statute (47 O.S. Section 12-417). Your court's judge will make the final determination whether the CLEET fee is assessed and collected on seatbelt violations. Your legal advisor (City Attorney or District Attorney) can provide additional guidance on the unpublished opinion offered by the Court of Criminal Appeals.

Reminder: Reports and payments are due on a monthly basis.

Send in your monthly activity for July 1 - July 31 by August 15. Send in your monthly activity for August 1 -August 31 by September 15, and so on.

Below is the current schedule:

Penalty Fees are to be collected on criminal and traffic offenses. O.S. Title 20, Section Section 1313.2 provides in relevant part that: "...Any person convicted of an offense punishable by a fine of ten dollars ($10.00) or more, or by incarceration, excluding parking and standing violations ... shall be ordered by the court to pay ten Dollars ($10.00) as a separate fee..." 20 O.S. Section 1313.2 defines "Convicted" as meaning any final adjudication of guilt, whether pursuant to a plea of guilty or nolo contendere or otherwise, and any deferred or suspended sentence or judgment.

A person must pay if he:

1. is found guilty by a court;
2. enters a plea of guilty or nolo contendere;
3. receives a deferred or suspended sentence; or
4. forfeits bond.

The violator may be assessed a penalty fee and ordered to pay court costs although a fine is not imposed.

What are Standing Violations pursuant to Title 20 O.S., Chapter 18, 1313.2 (B)? (B. Any person convicted of an offense, including traffic offenses but excluding parking and standing violations, punishable by a fine of Ten Dollars ($10.00) or more or by incarceration or any person forfeiting bond when charged with such an offense, shall be ordered by the court to pay ten Dollars ($10.00) as a separate fee, which fee shall be in addition to and not in substitution for any and all fines and penalties otherwise provided for by law for such offense.)

Title 47 O.S., Chapter 1, Section 1-167. Stand or standing, "Means the halting of a vehicle, whether occupied or not, otherwise than temporarily for the purpose of and while actually engaged in receiving or discharging passengers."

No, only upon conviction as defined in 20 O.S. Section 1313.2

Indigents must receive the same protections that they are afforded for fines. The municipality has no statutory obligation to pay for uncollected penalty assessments from its funds.

Several court clerks have only been collecting on traffic tickets. The statutes require the fees be collected. Clerks should contact their city officials for direction.

The statute says the fee "shall be ordered by the court" which generally means the action is mandated, not optional. A municipal judge may elect to issue a standing order to collect the penalty fee when applicable.

The statutes require that the penalty assessments must be deposited in an account created for that purpose (20 O.S. Section 1313.2(D)). The municipality may not deposit such money in its general fund or commingle it with municipal funds.

Reports and monies are due on a monthly basis.

Example:
July Due: August 15 Late Fee: August 25
August Due: September 15 Late Fee: September 25

Late Payment Penalty. The statute provides that a late penalty be imposed for failure to make timely deposits. A penalty of 1% of the principal amount due per day beginning the 10th day after the payment is due (the 25th of the month) will be imposed until the penalty reaches 100% of the principal amount due.

Late Fee Waiver. Requests for a waiver of the late fee may be submitted to the Director and if clear and convincing evidence is found that late fees were incurred as a result of circumstances outside the control of the court requesting the waiver or for other good cause, the Director may approve dismissing the late fee.

Adjustments. A new section has been added to the report to reflect adjustments. The most frequent causes for adjustments are calculation errors, check amount errors (the amount of the check is different than the amount owed due to a reversal of numbers, etc.), administrative fees were not withheld, or late payment fees are owed.

Reports of No Activity. Towns and cities who have a police department established or who sometimes employ police officers, must report if there is no activity for a quarter. We recently conducted a survey of courts to remove the small communities who have not had law enforcement activity for more than two years, or who never established a police department.

Partial fee collections should be recorded as a fraction. The formula would be to divide the amount paid by the fee amount. If you are unsure, simply list the fee amount paid and the number of fees on a separate line and we will make the calculations.

AFIS and Forensic Fees are sent directly to OSBI. Only the Penalty Assessment Fees and reports are to be sent to CLEET.

Please send AFIS and Forensic Reports and Fees to:

OSBI
Attn: Fee Assessments
6600 N. Harvey
Oklahoma City, OK 73116
Telephone: 1-800-522-8017