The Municipal Courts Department ("MCD") requests City Council to approve an ordinance authorizing the renewal of an Interlocal Agreement with TxDMV for Scofflaw services for a term of five years. TxDMV currently assists the City of Houston in the enforcement of Court orders by placing holds on motor vehicle registrations of individuals who have a Capias Pro Fine warrant (delinquent adjudicated case). This service also includes the clearing/removal of registration holds once the outstanding judgment is paid or the warrant is resolved/removed.
Section 702.003 of the Texas Transportation Code provides that the TxDMV may refuse to register a motor vehicle if, under an agreement with a municipality, the department receives information from the municipality that the owner of a vehicle has an outstanding warrant from that municipality for failure to appear or failure to pay a fine on a complaint that involves the violation of a traffic law. City Council previously approved MCD’s participation in this program under Ordinance No. 2012-1001.
The cost of this service is $23 per file and $0.12 per transaction for placing or removing a registration hold. This process begins by MCD sending a file to TxDMV containing a list of license plates associated with its capias cases. TxDMV probes each license plate and sends the list back to MCD with the registered owners’ name.MCD then undergoes a review process to ensure that the registration name and the warrant name are a match. MCD sends a file containing the verified license plates to TxDMV for placement of a hold on the vehicle registration associated with that license plate. When the Capias warrant has been paid or the warrant is resolved/removed, MCD sends a notification to TxDMV to clear the flag and remove the registration hold.
The current Interlocal Agreement with TxDMV is due to expire November 27, 2017.
The renewal of the Agreement will assist MCD in the enforcement and compliance of court orders, and reduce the number of delinquent cases. MCD reserves the option to include the flagging of unadjudicated warrant cases and Failure to Appear (FTA) cases at a later time.