Fines and Fees Justice: How Cities Can Prioritize Fines and Fees Reform During COVID-19
By: What Works Cities
Tags: Cities, Reform, Data, San Francisco, Chicago

State and local approaches to fines and fees justice

In our second webinar, we were joined by state and local practitioners making changes in their fines and fees policies in their COVID-19 response and recovery plans. Speakers from Minnesota, Colorado, San Francisco, and Chicago outlined their foundational work, practical approaches, and policy changes in their approach to current economic and public health challenges.

Interested in how states are working to decrease their reliance on fines and fees? You can learn more about Minnesota and Colorado leaders’ approaches in this webinar recording.

San Francisco, CA

Building on San Francisco’s model reforms in recent years, the city has been working across its departments and with the local courts to create discounts — and in some cases fully eliminate various fines and fees. This work has been led by the Financial Justice Project, the nation’s first effort embedded in government to assess and reform fines and fees that have a disproportionate and adverse impact on low-income residents and communities of color.

You can learn more about some of the concrete actions that the city has taken to alleviate the harmful financial burden of fines and fees here.

A sampling of various actions that were taken across departments in San Francisco to provide COVID-19 fines and fees relief.

To help departments in the city think about the details behind what kinds of relief made sense for their communities, the city connected local community groups with the departments to help create protocols that were specific to the needs of residents. For example, the city’s transportation agency provided relief around parking enforcement and the public utilities commission put a moratorium on water service shut-off for residents that were unable to make their payments. By taking actions like these and providing residents with relief, San Francisco has been able to take steps that will ultimately help support its residents.

And while the city may be facing a deep budget deficit similar to many cities across the country, moments like these are typically when governments create systems to increase their use of fines and fees to potentially make up that gap. But it has been proven that increasing monetary sanctions and aggressively enforcing them is a counterproductive economic policy.

As Anne Stuhldreher, Director of Financial Justice in the Office of the Treasurer for the City and County of San Francisco, shares:

“We’ve learned in San Francisco that this just does not work. We are not going to be able to fine and fee our way out of this problem. The math just doesn’t add up, and what would gain from it revenue-wise would not outweigh the harm that it would inflict on our residents.”

Chicago, IL

To bring relief to its residents, the City of Chicago built off of its previous reforms to bring the right stakeholders to the table and implement emergency policy measures in real time. Some of the actions that Chicago has taken to lessen the harmful impacts of fines and fees enforcement in response to COVID-19 include:

Ticket Issuance

Enforcement will be prioritized for safety-related violations

Enforcement on compliance-related violations will be suspended during crisis

Parking, Red Light, Speed Camera Violation Collections

Delay assessment of penalty (ticket doubling) during crisis

Delay driver’s license suspension during crisis

No booting during crisis

Delay referral of tickets to collection firms during crisis

No defaults of payment plans for during crisis

Utility Bills

Extend due dates during crisis delaying assessment of penalties

Delay referrals to collection firms during crisis

No defaults of payment plans during crisis

Administrative Hearing Collections

Extend due dates during crisis (this will delay assessment of interest)

Delay referrals to collection firms during crisis

No defaults of payment plans during crisis

As the city plans its recovery, it has been evaluating its relief extensions — already extending some aspects of their fines and fees relief twice — to help residents and to provide ample lead time for when the city is going to move forward with reinstating certain fines. By giving residents fair warning that some aspects of the city’s existing fines and fees could return to normal, especially around ticketing, Chicago hopes to make the transition easier on its residents to give them ample lead to indicate if they are going to need additional support.

The city is also seeing that fines and fees reform has been proven to be budget positive by removing an additional layer of financial hardship from Black and brown residents. Chicago has been weighing racial equity and the impact of gender on its policies and programs and is making strides to determine how the city can improve the historically transactional relationship between residents and government.

You can learn more about Chicago’s approach to fines and fees reform here.

Additional Resources from FFJC

What’s up next?

Join WWC for our next COVID-19 response and recovery webinar, Housing Stability in Coronavirus Response & Recovery on July 1st and 29th with experts from ChangeLab Solutions. We’ll also be joined by speakers from the Urban Institute, Eviction Lab, and the Fordham University Urban Law Center.

You can learn more about this two-part webinar series and register here for July 1st and here for July 29th.