One traffic ticket can trigger years of fines, arrests and debt for some Texans
Kayla Miranda was going home in 2002 in Medina County outside of San Antonio when she was pulled over for speeding.
Miranda, who was 19 at the time, had never had any tickets at that point of her life. The police officer said he could give her a warning, but he wasn’t going to, he had to teach her a lesson, Miranda recalled recently. The officer gave her a ticket, and with court fees, it totaled $250.
At the time, Miranda said, she was working three jobs with no help from her parents, so she could not pay the fine. When she went to court and said she couldn’t pay, her court date was pushed back. This happened repeatedly for a year, even after she moved to Dallas. She said she wasn’t allowed to use a payment plan or the alternative of community service.
Two years later, when she was waiting for her renewed driver’s license in the mail, she got a letter stating her renewal was denied because of outstanding fines from the ticket in 2002. This was Miranda’s notice that she was enrolled in the Failure to Appear/Pay Program, which is managed by OmniBase Services of Texas, a private company that manages the program in Texas.
A new report by Texas Appleseed, a nonprofit organization that advocates for equitable laws, says the program disproportionately affects people who have low incomes and people from marginalized communities. The program can cause negative ripple effects in housing, employment, and contact with the criminal justice system, the report says.
For Miranda, that first speeding ticket and her inability to renew her driver’s license followed her for 22 years, even after paying off the ticket. It led to a cycle of financial stress, legal issues, and emotional toll on her and her family, she said.
“It’s like it’s a hole you can never get out of,” Miranda said.
What is the Failure to Appear/Pay?
The Failure to Appear/Pay Program was introduced in 1996 by state Sen. John T. Montford, who saw a problem with outstanding warrants and people failing to appear in court in Texas. This, as the bill said, caused “a significant loss of revenue to the municipality or county and the state.” The goal was to set up a statewide traffic warrant database and to deny the renewal of a driver’s license for those who failed to pay fines from traffic tickets.
Since 1996, OmniBase has tracked and managed a database of court orders to deny the renewals of driver’s licenses for failure to appear or failure to pay or satisfy a judgment ordered by a court. It is implemented in municipalities and counties at their discretion.
According to the Texas Appleseed report, in December 2023, there were 981,000 Texans, or about 1 in 20 of the state’s driving population, who were not able to renew their licenses due to the program. By a conservative estimate, the 400,000 Texans who have expired licenses due to the program lose an aggregate of $5.1 billion in annual earnings, according to the report. These losses can be from lost income and court, translator, transportation and other fees.
The program was approved in Tarrant County in 2006. More than 20,000 drivers in Tarrant County can’t renew their licenses because of the program, which has collectively cost drivers drivers in the county $261.1 million in estimated annual earnings every year, the report said.
Fort Worth Municipal Court is not contracted with the program but there are over 11,300 Fort Worth drivers who have expired licenses because of the program, with $143.7 million in estimated annual earnings lost every year, according to the report.
When the Star-Telegram inquired about the program with Tarrant County, it was referred to a Commissioners Court Communication from June 8, 2024, which is an explanation of legislative changes that involve the Failure to Appear/Pay Program but not why it was implemented in Tarrant County.
The Star-Telegram reached out to commissioners Alisa Simmons and Manny Ramirez about the program but did not get a response. The Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office referred questions about the program to the county.
“An attack on the poor”
The Failure to Appear/Pay program can lead to arrest warrants and jail time if a traffic violation fine and court fees are not paid. If people are pulled over later and have an invalid license because they have been flagged in the program, they can be charged with a Class B misdemeanor.
Miranda said she had to continue driving with an expired license to get to work and provide for her family. She said she was targeted by police, being pulled over dozens of times and arrested 20 times between 2004 to 2015 because of her expired license.
She moved often between San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas, meaning she often missed correspondence about her traffic violations. She would get denied employment and housing because of the number of arrests on her record or because she didn’t have a driver’s license.
Miranda said she lost over $20,000 in fines, towing fees, missed work, bonds she paid, and the two vehicles she lost because she couldn’t pay to get them out of impound.
“This is an attack on poverty, it’s an attack on the poor,” Miranda said.
The program disproportionately affects people of color and people from lower income households, according to the Texas Appleseed report. Hispanic people are more likely to be given higher fines than others who commit similar offenses, the report said. Those who have limited English proficiency have to pay a translator, which adds to court fees, according to the report. While Black drivers represent 11 percent of Texans with driver’s licenses, they make up 34 percent of drivers with a hold in both the active and expired license group in the program, the report added.
Cole Meyer, a policy analyst for the Criminal Justice Project at Texas Appleseed, says an expired driver’s license creates barriers for residents from the inability to drive to work, to not having a valid identification when seeking housing, to increased chances of incarceration. These barriers exacerbate existing disparities for the least fortunate, keeping them in a “cycle of debt,” Meyer said.
“The descriptive statistics that we’ve uncovered on both race and income show us that this program is preying, for lack of a better word, on our community’s most vulnerable and, or, folks who are already marginalized in some capacity,” Meyer said.
The report says there are relatively little differences in the overall amount of fines and fees collected between courts that participate in the Failure to Appear/Pay program and those that do not. Municipal courts that issue holds through the program collect, on average, $14 more per case than those that do not. County courts that issue holds collect roughly $42 more per case than those that don’t, according to the report.
In recent years, Harris County, the City of Austin, and Dallas have ended their contracts with OmniBase. Meyer said he hopes jurisdictions see these inefficiencies and find alternatives to get people to court without putting them in a cycle of debt.
“There are jurisdictions that recognize the court isn’t actually serving its residents, and we need to terminate it because it’s doing nothing but hurting folks and setting us back economically,” Meyer said.
Bill would end program in Texas
On April 23, representatives of Texas Appleseed spoke at a committee hearing in support of House Bill 2609, which would repeal the Failure to Appear/Pay program. The bill is pending in a committee.
Meyer suggested two alternatives that are available to judges under the law: a waiver of indigency, which is a legal document stating a person’s inability to pay the court fees that allows a judge to waive part or all court fess; and the use of community service to cover full or partial court fees. He also suggests the use of text reminders for court appearances and redesigning court summons to simplify the language and highlight the most important information at the top.
These changes would improve relations between residents and the criminal justice system, Meyer said.
For Miranda, she was able to pay all of her tickets off last year. She paid off any tickets that had a warrant associated with them and asked to be credited for time served in jail after her arrests. She also applied community service hours to deduct time.
Miranda was finally able to receive her new driver’s license after 22 years and is able to travel more freely.
Miranda hopes people from lower income backgrounds find help from advocacy organizations and ask the courts for assistance to get out of the Failure to Appear/Pay program.
“We are the ones that, once we have that hold, are constantly discriminated against,” Miranda said. “We are the ones that are stuck in this never-ending loop — not people that have money. People that have money make things go away.”
