I'm in the process of drafting new interlocal agreements with our local LE agencies. What's the going rate for the CDA's cut? 25%? I honestly think we should get half, but I want something that's in line with other CDA's. Thanks.

I use a sliding scale based on the value of the money and/or vehicle forfeited.

$1,000.00 or less:100% to Prosecuting Attorney

$1,000.01 to $2,000.00: 50% to Law Enforcement Agency and 50% to Prosecuting Attorney.

$2,000.01 or more:
Default Judgment:70% to Law Enforcement
Agency and 30% to Prosecuting Attorney.

Agreed Judgment:60% to Law Enforcement Agency
and 40 % to Prosecuting Attorney.

Ken - Thanks for the info. Hate to impose further, but do you or anyone else have a good interlocal agreement re forfeitures form? Ours are absolute crap.

I think there was an old thread on this subject a year or so ago. My recollection is that 30-40% to the DA is very common and 50% is not out of line. 25% would be on the low side.

I suggest you get the value of any property up front, rather than waiting for an auction. You can take your cut from any cash forfeitures that are coming through the pipeline. Avoid letting law enforcement put the vehicle into undercover work and then taking your cut when they auction it off down the road. The accounting is a little more complicated, but it keeps everyone honest.

I believe our cut is 40% for most assets.

The Randall County CDA takes 35% on all forfeitures. I'm curious, though; what do most counties do regarding costs? If the seizure is worth more than $2,500, costs must be paid from the forfeited funds. But what do counties do when the forfeiture is for less? And, if property is involved, how is it valued, if at all?

We have never accounted for costs, despite the statutory authority to do so. I suppose that if our Clerk ever makes an issue of this we would deduct the costs from the seizing agency's portion of the proceeds. I have always viewed these cases as being akin to a contingent fee contract, with all costs and fees deducted from the client's (in this case, the seizing agency)share of the proceeds...the contingent fee is "net of all costs." After all, it is the seizing agency that decides what to seize and comes to our office to accomplish the forfeiture. If the seizing agency does not believe the potential cost is wirth the effort, they can decline to seize the property to begin with. Likewise, if my office detemines that the case does not have sufficient merit to proceed, we can either reject it up front or dismiss it. Under this same principle, we require the seizing agency to agree to satisfy any liens against the property before we will accept a case.

In my county we have agreed that the costs are taken out first and then the percentages are applied.

OK...now it's my turn to re-draft our interlocal forfeiture sharing agreements. Would y'all be willing to help out a brother and share your forms? Email anything you would like to share to jgrace@co.lubbock.tx.us

Our cut is 35% after costs are paid. We pay cost on all cases except thoes where property is returned. The first time I over heard the District Clerk complain to the District Judge about cost not being paid on forfeitures was the last time costs were not accounted for. Paying Cost = Happy Clerk = Happy Judge!

I am curious to get specific info on agreements with DPS as I have been told by DPS they have the same agreement with everyone which is under $5,000.00 DA gets it all. Over $5,000.00,and DPS get 70%, prosecutor get 30%. We take costs off the top on all assets before splitting. Interest is alos split according to the %.

Our agreements with the true local agencies, is 65% to LE and 35% to DA. If over $200,000, split is 50%/50%. (We figure and have experienced the bigger the amount, the harder they fight to get it back causing us to do much more work.)

I am alos ineterested in getting a gorup of the electeds together to get this more uniform across the state.

Also realize this is going to be a hot topic come January '09 in Austin!!!

With DPS the split is 35 us, 65 them...on all amounts.
Usually, I get a letter from the Lt. splitting their 65% among local PDs.

Anderson County takes 25%, regardless of value. On anything other than a return of the property, cost is assessed on the Defendant. The DA's Office never pays cost.

...with the local agencies and our office covers the court costs. I agree happy Clerk = happy Judge. My boss is talking about taking costs out first and then splitting the money. Everyone appears to be happy. My boss furnished a whole office -- 6 desks, chairs, credenzas, etc. with forfeiture money when we got new office space in our other county. We also got a high-tech courtroom presentation cart full of new toys. (We went 50-50 for the cart with the County Attorney) because we only have one District courtroom and one County courtroom & not much room to spare anywhere in the courthouse. But we could have paid for it all on our own. You wouldn't think a small office that isn't on the border could do that, but we have been fortunate. And I still think there's more drug money out there, we just haven't been lucky enough to catch it. When I worked on the border, I did forfeitures and we cleared the million dollar mark. Mostly one drug runner's car at a time. (You also have to account for the fact that the feds took the big money seizures.)

We do 70/30 in all cases. Any court costs and/or reported expenses (towing bills, etc.) come out before the split. Our county is using an online auctioneer (Renebates.com) to dispose of vehicles. After the auctioneer gets his cut, the split is 70/30.

Also, cars always go to the PDs.

We split anything under $2000 50-50. For those seizures over $2000, it depends on if the matter is contested (which we usually define as whether the defendant files an answer). If the matter is uncontested (i.e. we take a default), then we get 40%, the seizing agency gets 60%. If it is contested, then we split 50-50 to reflect the greater amount of work to obtain a judgment. We take court costs off the top and then do our split.

Here is where I would like some input:
For seized cars we have been charging $10/day storage and $150 for towing. The cars are stored on a secure lot at the police station. We ran into some controversy on the storage fees with a local used car salesman who was a lienholder on one of the cars. We usually write off or write down the total for storage and towing, but with this guy we didn't because we are pretty sure he was not an "innocent owner," i.e. he knew the guy was a drug dealer when he sold him the car. We thought we were being pretty generous by giving him the car back at all, but he threw a fit about having to pay storage and towing fees to get his cars back and wrote a letter to the editor that got published, and we were forced defend our position with a response.

How are other jurisdictions handling this? How many of you are charging storage fees? How often do you require payment of them before a lienholder can retrieve their cars? Has it ever blown up on you?

To my knowledge, we don't charge storage fees.

In my opinion, you can't charge storage fees for a vehicle that is seized for forfeiture under Chapter 59. The seizure is beyond the control of the person whose property is seized and they therefore have no way to mitigate the storage fees.

On the other hand, if we put the car in a commercial storage lot, then they would charge $35/day. The city or county can be held liable for damage to vehicles while in our custody (I believe under a negligent bailment theory), so the storage fees are insurance against that risk.