I’m happy for Ms. Rivera for winning her case, and happy that OC Probation lost this scummy attempt to recoup a few extra thou out of a poor family’s pockets.
I am going to pick a tiny nit with this story. I suspect that the 40% self-funding stat for the probation department is misleading, or being misread. On reading the BB story, and the TP story it is based on, and the judge’s decision that story is based on, I came away with the impression that 40% of the department’s funding comes from going after offenders (as in this case).
But looking at the judge’s source for the 40% statistic, it’s a budget summary document that lists total expenditure and revenue for county departments. http://bos.ocgov.com/finance/2017WB/p1_frm.htm
I am not enough of a budget expert to be sure, and it’s not as easy as it should be to find out with a bit of web sleuthing, but I strongly suspect that a massive chunk of the probation department’s “revenues” are transfers from state or federal governments. In other words, state and federal programs are being delegated to the county probation department, and the costs reimbursed.
Ms. Rivera was charged $29 per day for her son’s incarceration, plus close to $2000 for legal fees. (And hit with interest and penalties for the unpaid amount.) As devastating as that cost is to a working-class family, I doubt that it comes anywhere close to 40% of the cost of locking up her son.
