House committee advances bill to keep juvenile administrative fees from being collected

The House Judiciary Committee on an 8‑3 vote advanced House Bill 12‑94, a measure sponsors said is needed to prevent courts from resuming collection of administrative fees and court costs against juveniles on July 1.

The bill would extend provisions adopted in 2021 by House Bill 21‑1315 that eliminated many court costs and administrative fees for people who were juveniles at the time of their offense. Sponsors and multiple witnesses told the committee that a drafting error in the original statute created a repeal date that would allow collection to resume for a subset of cases unless the legislature acts.

Why it matters: Committee testimony said roughly 4,100 unique cases could become enforceable and that those assessments amount to about $700,000 in potential collections. Witnesses described the fees as harmful to youth and families, especially in rural districts, and said collections were inefficient and often unrecoverable.

Sponsor Rep. Jackson said the bill is a technical fix to maintain the status quo created by the 2021 bipartisan legislation. Terry Scanlon, legislative liaison for the Colorado courts, testified that the judicial department’s counsel told collections staff to resume collections if the repeal date is not removed. “If the general assembly doesn’t adopt the strike below, we’ll resume collections,” Scanlon said.

Advocates who testified in support described practical harms from the original assessments. Ashley Chase, staff attorney and legislative liaison at the Office of the Child’s Representative, said the earlier change reduced harmful barriers for young people, saying, “You cannot get water from a stone,” as she explained that most juvenile defendants and their families cannot pay these costs.

Victim‑service providers asked the committee to account for how the state funds those programs. Courtney Sutton, public policy director for the Colorado Organization for Victim Assistance (COVA), said the original 2021 package used transfers from the Marijuana Cash Fund to help offset lost revenue and that victim services have since lost federal VOCA funding. She told the committee that Colorado’s VOCA funding has fallen from about $56,000,000 in prior years to roughly $13,000,000 in fiscal year 2025 and urged lawmakers to consider sustainable funding for victim services as juvenile fee revenues decline.

Committee members pressed judicial and collections staff about which cases would be affected and whether assessments had been vacated. Collections manager Linda Lindsey told the committee the 4,000 cases are “youthful offender” matters — people who were under 18 at offense and under 21 at sentencing — where courts had labeled the assessments “non‑enforceable” while leaving them on the records; if the repeal date is not removed, those cases could become subject to collection statutes.

Committee action and next steps: Sponsors offered a title amendment and a strike‑below to correct the drafting oversight. The committee adopted the sponsor amendments without recorded objections and voted to send House Bill 12‑94 to the Committee of the Whole with a favorable recommendation.

Votes at a glance: House Judiciary Committee roll call on the motion to advance HB12‑94 to Committee of the Whole with a favorable recommendation — outcome: approved 8–3. Yes: Bacon; Clifford; Espinosa; Garcia; Soper; Zocai; Carter; Mister chair No: Armagost; Caldwell; Kelty

What’s next: With the committee’s favorable recommendation, the bill will be reported to the Committee of the Whole for further consideration.

(Reporting note: witnesses and sponsors repeatedly distinguished administrative fees and court costs from criminal fines and restitution, which the 2021 law and this bill both exclude.)