Michael Walls has been receiving the brunt of peoples’ anger and frustration in a situation over which he has no control.

Magistrate for the city of Kimberly, Walls is having to explain why court costs and bail bond filing fees increased last month.

The Alabama Legislature passed HB 688 (Act 2012-535), which increased court costs and sets new bail bond filing fees.

The act went into effect June 21.

“People are coming to the window upset,” he said. “I’ve been following it, hoping it didn’t get passed. But it did and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

The bill increased the court costs for non-traffic misdemeanors and municipal ordinance cases by $40, and traffic cases by $26.

Excluded from the traffic cases are seatbelt, open container and parking violations. The court costs remained the same for those charges.

“It all goes to help support and run the circuit courts throughout the state,” Walls said.

In addition, civic cases in circuit and district courts, except child support and small claims cases, will have an additional docket fee of $45. Small claims cases’ docket fee will increase by $15.

Some criminal cases in circuit, district and municipal courts will have an additional docket fee of $40.

The Administrative Office of Courts (AOC) praises the fee hike because the Unified Judicial System (UJS) budget received less from the state than it requested for fiscal year 2013.

“The consequences of this budget would have been the layoff of approximately 500 AOC/UJS employees for FY2013,” according to the AOC website. The bill “provides a revenue stream to AOC/UJS to help ‘fill the hole’ in the FY 2013 General Fund Budget.”

In Fultondale, magistrate Lela Snow said the municipal judge explained the fees in court the day after the act passed, which largely eliminated complaints and confusion in that city.

However, she said implementing the fee is the difficult part.

“I’m pulling my hair out,” Snow said. “It’s a lot more paperwork and a lot more work on the clerks. We’ve done the initial setup. Thank goodness for our software person, but it’s still just a matter of making sure it goes where it’s supposed to go.”

Barbara Cobb, the magistrate in Gardendale, said the increase affected only people who received fines before June 21. “If they had already been instructed about their court costs, we have four to six weeks to clear them out of the system,” she said.

Cobb said it was quite an undertaking for the magistrate’s office to create new forms and add information to the existing forms.

“We had to rush to get it done on time,” she said. “We’re just doing what we have to do. It’s not what we want to do. It’s all ordered by the legislature, and the court has to enforce it. It’s not something we have any control over.”

In addition to upping certain court costs, Act 2012-535 increases bail bonds fees by $35.

“It’s causing a big headache for the bonding companies,” said Larry Holcomb, owner of First Choice Bail Bonds in Fultondale. “Bonding companies are responsible for paying the courts $35 for every person we get out of jail. The way they have it set up, if we don’t pay the courts that fee within two days, the put a $500 fee on us.”

Holcomb said some jails allow bonding companies to pay the additional fees at the time an inmate is bonded out of jail. Others will not collect the fee at the time an inmate is bonded out, he said.

“I do business in 32 cities,” he said. “Most of them let me pay the fee when we post bond. Usually my guys turn in their paperwork on Fridays, but I have to keep up with it on a day-to-day basis now.”

Holcomb said six people work for First Choice.

The fees ultimately fall back onto the individual.

“It’s not going to come out of our pocket,” Holcomb said. “It will fall back on the criminals because we’re upping our fee $35.”