2025-117 Victim Restitution

Audit Recommendations Disclosure

When an audit is completed and a report is issued, auditees must provide the State Auditor with information regarding their progress in implementing recommendations from our reports at three intervals from the release of the report: 60 days, six months, and one year. Additionally, Senate Bill 1452 (Chapter 452, Statutes of 2006), requires auditees who have not implemented recommendations after one year, to report to us and to the Legislature why they have not implemented them or to state when they intend to implement them. Below is a listing of each recommendation the State Auditor made in the report referenced and a link to the most recent response from the auditee addressing their progress in implementing the recommendation and the State Auditor’s assessment of auditee’s response based on our review of the supporting documentation.

Recommendation 2

To enable local collection entities to effectively track and assess the restitution orders and fines they collect, the Legislature should consider requiring or incentivizing courts and counties to modernize their systems. Any updated system should provide the data necessary for local collection entities to fulfill their reporting obligations to the JCC regarding court-ordered debt. Specifically, these systems should be capable of distinguishing restitution fines from orders and of reporting key details, including the amount due, the amount and percentage collected, any interest accrued, and the amounts disbursed to CalVCB and to victims.

Recommendation 3

To facilitate CDCR’s ability to ensure that the restitution order payments it collects reach more victims, the Legislature should consider amending state law to require local collection entities—including superior courts, probation departments, and district attorneys’ offices—to provide CDCR with victim contact information for the sole purpose of disbursing court-ordered restitution payments, unless the victim objects to this information sharing.

Recommendation 5

If the Legislature continues to require interest, it should consider doing the following to ensure that courts and local collection entities are applying interest consistently and fairly:

• Amend state law to authorize state and local collection entities to apply 10 percent interest to all restitution orders regardless of whether a judicial order expressly includes it.
• Specify how collection entities should calculate and apply interest. For example, it could require local collection entities to calculate interest on the outstanding principal only, to apply payments to only the principal until it is paid off, and then to apply payments to the accumulated interest. This practice would result in a shorter time to full repayment. Alternately, local collection entities could follow standard financial practices and apply payments to interest and then to the outstanding principal, resulting in more interest paid to the victim.

Recommendation 6

To facilitate consistency and equity in the collection of restitution orders, the Legislature should consider doing the following:

• Require CDCR and local collection entities to refer delinquent restitution orders and fines to FTB.

Recommendation 7

To facilitate consistency and equity in the collection of restitution orders, the Legislature should consider doing the following:

• Determine whether state and local collection entities should address FTB’s costs in one of the following ways:
  • By passing costs to the individual who owes restitution by increasing the amount of the restitution order to cover FTB’s administrative fee.
  • By passing costs to the victim—with the victim’s consent—by allowing FTB’s administrative fee to be paid from the restitution order amount.
  • By paying FTB’s administrative fee from its own funds or through a Legislative appropriation.