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June 6, 2025

How Two Cities Used Fines and Fees Reform to Increase Opportunity

Issue Areas
Justice and public safety Financial security
Outcomes
Effective and inclusive government

Unfair fines and fees

No one wants to receive a fine or fee from their local government. For higher-income households, the occasional parking ticket or late fee is inconvenient and aggravating. But for low-income households, fines and fees can be financially disastrous.

Fines and fees can deter certain behaviors, and they can be important sources of revenue for government services. However, many fines and fees are ineffective in achieving their intended ends, and disproportionately impact low-income, incarcerated, or otherwise disadvantaged individuals, creating obstacles to upward mobility.

Fortunately, state and local leaders are increasingly recognizing the outsized burden of fines and fees on low-income families, and many have begun to seek reforms. A fairer, less punitive, and more evidence-based approach to fines and fees might include the following components: instituting “ability to pay” policies, eliminating predatory fines and fees, and helping individuals restore their driver’s licenses.

Ability to pay reform

Local leaders might begin reforming their fines and fees regime by instituting "ability to pay" policies for various violations. These policies mean that the amount individuals pay for a given fine or fee is based on their income and/or public benefits eligibility. In practice, this reduces the amount that lower-income households pay for various fines and fees.

These programs have grown in popularity because they not only reduce the economic burden of fines and fees on lower-income households but also increase the likelihood that municipalities receive payment for various fines and fees.

The ability to verify income is critical for these programs, so successful programs tend to rely on interagency collaboration that enables rapid income verification. Successful programs also often include an online portal for people to apply for fine reductions or payment plans.

In 2016, leaders in San Francisco, CA, responded to growing calls for fines and fees reform by creating the Financial Justice Project (FJP). The initiative is housed within the San Francisco Office of the Treasurer & Tax Collector and works across local government departments to identify harmful fines and fees, then advocate for their elimination or for the creation of alternative approaches.

In 2018, the FJP introduced ability to pay reforms for traffic violations for low-income individuals. FJP helped the San Francisco Superior Court launch the MyCitations Online Tool, which allows people to apply for a fine reduction by verifying their income. The FJP also worked with the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) to reduce the fees for enrolling in payment plans for parking tickets. Lowering the fees led to the number of people paying their tickets to quadruple, resulting in $159,103 of additional revenue for the city in a two month period.

Eliminating predatory fees

Another impactful approach to fines and fees reform is to eliminate fees that are regressive and predatory altogether. A predatory fine or fee is one that is assessed to generate revenue, not to deter behavior, and targets the people that can least afford to pay them, such as fees for using public defenders. Many fines and fees are a lose-lose for citizens and governments–they are disproportionately punitive and burden low-income individuals with fines and debt that threaten financial stability. Additionally, local governments often lose money trying to collect certain fines and fees, and resources devoted to revenue collection come at the expense of other crucial government services.

Identifying and eliminating unfair fines and fees across departments is no small task for a jurisdiction. But with dedicated staff empowered to work across departments, local governments can identify harmful penalties, analyze their effectiveness, and implement alternatives–and the returns for low-income households can be enormous.

The FJP has eliminated or replaced a wide range of predatory fines and fees in San Francisco. In 2018, it helped the city and county become the first to eliminate debt related to probation and ankle monitoring fees, providing debt relief to around 21,000 people. It also helped San Francisco become the first county in the country to remove markup on items in prison commissaries, reducing prices an average of 43%, and to make inmate phone calls free. In the transportation realm, the FJP helped the Metropolitan Transportation Commission institute a one-time waiver of outstanding fines for all drivers, reduce penalties for nonpayment of tolls on the Bay Area’s vital bridges from $70 to $20, and waived nonpayment penalties for low-income drivers.

Drivers license restoration and record expunction

One of the most concrete consequences of unpaid fines and fees is the suspension of a driver's license. Unpaid fines and fees can lead to driver's license suspensions in 25 states. With 78% of Americans driving to work, people with a suspended license struggle to access basic necessities and keep their jobs.

While some license suspensions are the result of dangerous driving or criminal behavior, many stem from minor violations unrelated to public safety, like unpaid parking tickets, failing to appear in traffic court, or outstanding debt from other government-levied fines or fees. Recognizing the negative impact of these suspensions, many communities have created driver’s license restoration and criminal record expunction initiatives to help individuals with suspended licenses get back on the road with a clear record.

These programs generally alert people with suspended licenses that they are eligible for license restoration, then provide individualized legal aid to navigate the court system, have their records expunged, and get their licenses reinstated. They tend to operate as partnerships between the district attorney’s office, the courts, departments of motor vehicles, and legal services providers.

In Durham (NC), local leaders sought to address the racial disparities of driver’s license suspensions, where 80% of suspended drivers were people of color. To address the issue at scale, the City of Durham's Innovation Team (I-Team) brought together the Durham County District Attorney’s Office, the county courts, and a host of pro-bono legal service providers from community organizations and local law schools. These partners would lead to the creation of the Durham Expunction and Restoration Program (DEAR) in 2018.

DEAR galvanized an ecosystem of actors capable of delivering legal services at unprecedented scale. Since launching in 2018,DEAR has restored over 1,200 drivers licenses and waived approximately $2.7 million in fines and fees for over 11,000 low-income residents. The program also expunged criminal records for minor offenses for approximately 35,000 people. The success of DEAR has led to similar drivers license restoration programs in 14 other counties in North Carolina.

Taking Action:

For local leaders interested in fines and fees reform, strategies such as instituting “ability to pay” policies, eliminating unfair fines and fees, helping individuals restore their driver’s licenses represent compelling, evidence-based strategies that have already proven successful in San Francisco, CA and Durham, NC

Looking to dive deeper into these solutions? Check out the links below: