Parents of children in Orange County juvenile hall before 2018 will no longer be billed for their child’s housing under a unanimous vote this week by the Board of Supervisors.
Board members forgave $18.5 million in fees owed by the families — mostly poor and minorities — joining other counties throughout California in ceasing collection of the old fees. In this fiscal year, the projected revenue from these fees added up to $925,000 for Orange County.
Los Angeles County recently dissolved $89.2 million in juvenile debt, according to the Western Center on Law and Poverty. San Bernardino County forgave $16.6 million, Riverside County dissolved $4.1 million and San Diego County forgave $58.8 million, the law center said.
“Thank you, Orange County, for your action on juvenile fees,” said Oscar Villeda, a local father who owed money, in a prepared statement. “Families like mine are working hard day in and day out to pay for our basic necessities, some even working weekends so that we earn enough and can try to live a better life. The elimination of these fees is a great relief, allowing us to sleep better at night, especially in the economic crisis caused by COVID-19.”
State law enacted in the 1960s allowed juvenile detention centers to charge parents for housing their children, with bills adding up to the thousands. A law passed in 2018 ended the fees, but allowed counties to continue to collect assessments that had already been made.
In May, the Orange County Register wrote about a family struggling to finish paying off $8,000 for their son’s 10-year-old detention. The county Probation Department threatened to garnish their wages and collect their tax return after they were unable to make a recent payment.
“Orange County has been a bad actor in the state for quite a while in how they charged families and the robust collection practices they had in place,” said Stephanie Campos-Bui, deputy director of the Policy Advocacy Clinic at UC Berkeley’s law school. “Compared to the other 57 counties, Orange County was remarkable in going after families.”
Supervisor Don Wagner said the county reevaluated and determined it was not financially smart to keep collecting.
“We were not collecting enough of the debt to justify the expense of collecting,” Wagner said. “The people we were able to collect from were doing the right thing. The deadbeats were unreachable.”
A new bill, SB 1290, has been introduced to end the collection of old fees among the 16 counties still going after them.
“Maybe (Orange County) saw the writing on the wall,” Campos-Bui said.
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