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Court Fees, Traffic Fines, Estate Costs Going Up

Jasmina Meyer/Highlands Today

Bob Germaine, Senior Director Court Services, and Kathy Whitlock, Director Probate, along with directors of other departments work on the implementation of new fees from the State Senate Bill 1790 Tuesday at the Highlands County Courthouse in Sebring.

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By Joe  Seelig | Highlands Today

Published: June 18, 2008

SEBRING — Court fees, traffic fines and an assortment of other charges are going up as a result of the passage of Senate Bill 1790, and clerk of courts officials are scrambling to get the changes recorded before July 1, when these increases kick in.

The bill was approved by Gov. Charlie Crist on June 10.

The Highlands County Clerk of Court's staff is going through the 73-page senate bill making all the mandatory changes it contains to its fee schedules, said Bob Germaine, senior director of court services.

"We're working right now on all of these changes," Germaine said. "We've got a bunch of fees going up. What we're having to do is go through the bill and pick out all the changes, and then we're going through our fee schedule and changing our fee schedule."

He was waiting on information from the Florida Association of Court Clerks and Comptrollers to see what they are going to give them.

The staff already completed the work-up for all of the traffic fine changes.

For example, a speeding fine for 6 to 9 mph over the speed limit will rise from $86.50 to $104, he said.
Fees will be rising in traffic, juvenile, civil, criminal, probate (estate and guardianship fees) as well as a slew of service charges.

For example, it's going to cost 50 cents more for oath administering, attesting and sealing, up from $3. A wedding certificate (suitable for framing) is going to cost a dollar more at $7.

Marriage licenses would stay the same, already at $123.50, unless you take the counseling, when the fee drops to $91. That schedule had not been completed.

The filing fee with the most significant increase is "Removal of Tenant Action." The fee statewide would increase from $75 to $265, Germaine said. Plus a $5 state-imposed Court Education Trust Fund fee brings it from $80 up to $270 to get the paperwork started for eviction.

Some landlords may find it cheaper to pay their tenants $200 to get out, Germaine suggested dryly.
Did any of the fees go down?

Germaine gasped with laughter.

"You've been around here longer than that," Germaine recovered. "That's a good one."
And convicted drunk drivers won't only be seeing double, they'll be paying double.

First offense will go from $250-$500 per incident to $500 to $1,000.

Second time offenders were paying $500 to $1,000 in fines. Now they'll shell out $1,000 to $2,000.
For the third offense, $1,000 to $2,500 will go up to a whopping $2,000 to $5,000.

On the civil traffic fee schedule there are many changes, although not as dramatic.

A non-moving violation will increase from $74.50 to $89. Moving violations will go up from $121.50 to $139.

Red-light running, failure to stop at a traffic signal is up from $186.50 to $204. Failure to attend traffic school will cost you $40.50.

Speeding in a school zone 1 to 5 mph over the posted limit goes up from $111.50 to $129.
Parking in a handicapped zone rises from $144.50 to $159.

And that's only a few of the changes.

Avon Park Police Cmdr. Michael J. Rowan said Tuesday he was aware of the new fees coming down but said he had not yet received notification.

"These fines are mandated by the state," Rowan said. "We get our notification sent to us from the traffic division at the court house. They give us our new fee schedule. We then make copies for all of the officers and they carry it with their citation books."

Sheriff's Maj. Mark Schrader said his deputies were just handed the new fee schedules.
One would think that with the new laptop computers they would enter the data at a central server and then everyone would have it. Not so, Schrader said.

"They have to manually write that in," he said. "With (the Smart Cops computer system) we'd have to have the fees for all the different counties. I guess it would be different if it were an in-house computer system."

Schrader said traffic fines and fees vary from county to county. He did not know if Highlands fines and fees were higher, lower, or somewhere in the middle, compared with other counties in the state.

First, the changes will be sent to the State Attorneys Office, the Florida Highway Patrol, the Sheriff's Office, Sebring, Avon Park and Lake Placid, police departments, the Florida Department of Transportation police, parks and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers.

Actually, game and fish violation fees will stay the same at $58, as are the littering fines at $108.
All-terrain vehicle enthusiasts will see increases from $69.50 to $84 for those violations. Moving boating infractions will rise from $68 to $93.

Filing a civil court case will go up from $255 to an even $300.

The entire process should take a few more days to a week to finish, Germaine said. The county's attorneys should be getting the new fee schedules by the end of next week, he added.

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