Fine and Fee Justice

About the Fine and Fee Justice inititative

The City of Sacramento and Sacramento County were selected jointly to participate in the inaugural Cities and Counties for Fine and Fee Justice initiative led by PolicyLink, the Fines and Fees Justice Center, and the San Francisco Financial Justice Project. This collaboration was one of ten from around the country selected for this opportunity in April 2020. This effort is being spearheaded by the City Office of Innovation & Economic Development, Councilmember Jay Schenirer, and County Supervisors Don Nottoli and Phil Serna.

The Cities & Counties for Fine and Fee Justice effort will help us develop and implement fine and fee reforms that make a difference in the lives of low-income residents and residents of color – aligning with our City’s work in furthering inclusive economic development, to create more economic opportunity with and for lower-income communities and communities of color.

Our Sacramento cohort has led local teams to assess and reform fines and fees that disproportionately impact low-income people and people of color. We received $50,000 in grant funding, individualized technical assistance, budgeting/revenue forecasting support, assistance with messaging and press outreach, and training on a range of tools, strategies, promising policies, and best practices to support these efforts.

What we're doing

To date, the Sacramento cohort has engaged City departments to catalogue and identify opportunities for fine and fee reduction and reform, including City Police, Community Development, Public Works, Finance, Utilities, Fire, Youth Parks & Community Enrichment, and Convention and Cultural Services Departments.

The way we determine what reforms we want to do is twofold.

  1. Our City and County have been undertaking an extensive data collection about our fines and fees so that we can analyze that data.
  2. Simultaneously, we are collecting feedback from local community members about which fines and fees are of most concern to them. The reform agenda will grow from a mix of the analysis and feedback from our City, County, and community stakeholders.

Our first reform, implemented in April 2022, is a waiver of the Sacramento Police Department’s $180 towing administrative fee for income-eligible City residents, as shown on the chart below:

Number of people in householdMaximum household income to qualify
1$41,275
2$52,260
3$65,880
4$79,500
5$93,120
6$106,740
7$120,360
8$133,980

We aim to add at least two additional reforms by July 2023.

Get involved

Please take the City and County of Sacramento Fines and Fees Survey to share your thoughts about City and County fines and fees.  We will update this page with engagement opportunities and progress in the coming months.

Resources

Here are a few links illustrating some of the results that have come out of the national activity around fines and fees:

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