S.C. Code Ann. § 14-1-207 – Additional assessment, magistrate's court; remittance; disposition; annual audits

(A) Beginning January 1, 1995, and continuously after that date, a person who is convicted of, pleads guilty or nolo contendere to, or forfeits bond for an offense tried in magistrate's court must pay an amount equal to 100 percent of the fine imposed as an assessment. This assessment must be paid to the magistrate and deposited as required by Section 22-1-70 in the county in which the criminal judgment is rendered for remittance to the State Treasurer by the county treasurer. The assessment is based upon that portion of the fine that is not suspended and assessments must not be waived, reduced, or suspended.
(B) The county treasurer must remit 12 percent of the revenue generated by the assessment imposed in subsection (A) to the county to be used for the purposes set forth in subsection (D) and remit the balance of the assessment revenue to the State Treasurer on a monthly basis by the fifteenth day of each month and make reports on a form and in a manner prescribed by the State Treasurer. Assessments paid in installments must be remitted as received.
(C) The State Treasurer shall deposit the assessments as follows:
1. (1) 35.12 percent for programs established pursuant to Chapter 21 of Title 24 and the Shock Incarceration Program as provided in Article 13, Chapter 13 of Title 24;
2. (2) 22.49 percent to the Department of Public Safety program of training in the fields of law enforcement and criminal justice;
3. (3) .65 percent to the Department of Public Safety to defray the cost of erecting and maintaining the South Carolina Law Enforcement Officers Hall of Fame. When funds collected pursuant to this item exceed the necessary costs and expenses of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Officers Hall of Fame operation and maintenance as determined by the Department of Public Safety, the department may retain the surplus for use in its law enforcement training programs;
4. (4) 20.42 percent for the State Office of Victim Assistance;
5. (5) 8.94 percent to the general fund;
6. (6) 11.38 percent to the Office of Indigent Defense for the defense of indigents;
7. (7) 1.0 percent to the Attorney General's Office for a fund to provide support for counties involved in complex criminal litigation. For the purposes of this item, 'complex criminal litigation' means criminal cases in which the State is seeking the death penalty and has served notice as required by law upon the defendant's counsel and the county involved has expended more than two hundred fifty thousand dollars for a particular case in direct support of operating the court of general sessions and for prosecution related expenses. The Attorney General shall develop guidelines for determining what expenses are reimbursable from the fund and shall approve all disbursements from the fund. Funds must be paid to a county for all expenditures authorized for reimbursement under this item except for the first one hundred thousand dollars the county expended in satisfying the requirements for reimbursement from the fund; however, money disbursed from this fund must be disbursed on a 'first received, first paid' basis. When revenue in the fund reaches five hundred thousand dollars, all revenue in excess of five hundred thousand dollars must be credited to the general fund of the State. Unexpended revenue in the fund at the end of the fiscal year carries over and may be expended in the next fiscal year.
(D) The revenue retained by the county under subsection (B) must be used for the provision of services for the victims of crime including those required by law. These funds must be appropriated for the exclusive purpose of providing victim services as required by Article 15 of Title 16; specifically, those service requirements that are imposed on local law enforcement, local detention facilities, prosecutors, and the summary courts. First priority must be given to those victims' assistance programs which are required by Article 15 of Title 16 and second priority must be given to programs which expand victims' services beyond those required by Article 15 of Title 16. All unused funds must be carried forward from year to year and used exclusively for the provision of services for victims of crime. All unused funds must be separately identified in the governmental entity's adopted budget as funds unused and carried forward from previous years.
(E) To ensure that fines and assessments imposed pursuant to this section and Section 14-1-209(A) are properly collected and remitted to the State Treasurer, the annual independent external audit required to be performed for each county pursuant to Section 4-9-150 must include a review of the accounting controls over the collection, reporting, and distribution of fines and assessments from the point of collection to the point of distribution and a supplementary schedule detailing all fines and assessments collected by the magistrate's court of that county, the amount remitted to the county treasurer, and the amount remitted to the State Treasurer.
1. (1) To the extent that records are made available in the format determined pursuant to subsection (E)(4), the supplementary schedule must include the following elements:
  1. (a) all fines collected by the magistrate's court;
  2. (b) all assessments collected by the magistrate's court;
  3. (c) the amount of fines retained by the county treasurer;
  4. (d) the amount of assessments retained by the county treasurer;
  5. (e) the amount of fines and assessments remitted to the State Treasurer pursuant to this section; and
  6. (f) the total funds, by source, allocated to victim services activities, how those funds were expended, and any balances carried forward.
2. (2) The supplementary schedule must be included in the external auditor's report by an "in relation to" paragraph as required by generally accepted auditing standards when information accompanies the basic financial statements in auditor submitted documents.
3. (3) Within thirty days of issuance of the audited financial statement, the county must submit to the State Treasurer a copy of the audited financial statement and a statement of the actual cost associated with the preparation of the supplemental schedule required in this section. Upon submission to the State Treasurer, the county may retain and pay from the fines and assessments collected pursuant to this section the actual expense charged by the external auditor for the preparation of the supplemental schedule required in this subsection, not to exceed one thousand dollars each year.
4. (4) The clerk of court and county treasurer shall keep records of fines and assessments required to be reviewed pursuant to this subsection in the format determined by the county council and make those records available for review.