Court costs for traditional and general sessions courts.

The Municipal Court Reform Act of 2004 provides the authority for municipalities to set court costs. T.C.A. § 16-18-304(a) says "Notwithstanding any law to the contrary, municipal court costs shall be set and collected in the amount prescribed by municipal law or ordinance." Unlike state courts where the statutes specify what the various state court costs, fees, and taxes are, the MCRA only gives this one line of guidance.

T.C.A § 16-18-304(a) requires that $2.00 from every court costs collected be forwarded to the Department of Revenue and shall be credited to the Administrative Office of the Courts to provide training and continuing education courses for municipal court judges and municipal court clerks. ;This is commonly referred to as the "Municipal Training Education Fee" and the court clerk will use the Department of Revenue's form PRV 414, Line 12 to provide this fee. This MTE fee will be submitted whenever a defendant pays court costs.

For example, if a city's court costs are $100, the defendant will pay the city $100 court costs, the city will keep $98 and forward the remaining $2 to the Department of Revenue.

Because court costs are set by ordinances, court costs can vary from city to city. A city should consider the expenditures needed to operate its court and ensure that the court costs are reasonable in nature, and not punitive.

While this list is not exhaustive by any measure, here are several of the common items that cities should consider when determining their court costs:

• Frequency of court hearings (daily, weekly, monthly)
• Number of court clerk staff
• Number of cases adjudicated each hearing
• Volume of existing cases requiring staff involvement (cases on payment plans, failure to pay, reporting requirements to the State of Tennessee)
• Salaries, health insurance, longevity pay, retirement for court clerk staff
• Overtime for court staff (exempt vs. nonexempt employees)
• Employer coverage for Social Security, disability insurance, taxes
• Software expenses (court docket software, legal research databases like Westlaw or Lexis Nexis, e-citation program expenses)
• Office expenses (paper, printers, copiers, computers, filing cabinets, supplies, telephone)
• Number of judges
• Pay of the judge
• Own or rent the building where court occurs
• Court Officers and courtroom security (police officers, armed security, overtime, on-duty time, metal detectors)
• Expenses for court clerk training (conferences, hotels, travel, expenses)
• Departmental contributions to the entire city budget for property and casualty insurance

Court costs are designed to offset the cost of maintaining the court. Even when a violator pays before court and does not appear for for a court hearing, there are still costs associated with maintaining the court. It is suggested that the city charge uniform for all charges, regardless of whether the defendant appears in court or pays before court. Otherwise, the city should be prepared to defend any amounts that are greater by proving that the statutory amounts are insufficient to pay for reasonable costs of operations.

Court costs for general sessions cases

T. C. A. § 16-18-304(b) applies to the court costs assessed by a municipal court exercising concurrent general sessions jurisdiction for its criminal cases. It reads as follows:

"Notwithstanding any law to the contrary, to the extent that a municipal court is exercising its duly conferred, concurrent general sessions court jurisdiction in a given case, this section does not apply and costs in such case shall be assessed, collected and distributed in the same manner as such costs are assessed, collected and distributed in the court of general sessions." T. C. A. § 16-18-304(b).

Simply put, if a city has a general sessions case, the city is permitted to collect the same types of court costs a county court would collect. While there are numerous statutes detailing what fees to assess for which criminal violations, the general sessions courts can collect costs and fees that a traditional city court would not. T.C.A. § 8-21-401(g) details several fees a criminal general sessions court can collect, including a failure to appear fee ($40), criminal base fee ($62), traffic citation fee ($42) and an expunction fee ($100). Again, these are for criminal cases and this paragraph does not apply to traditional city courts.

Lastly, for a detailed publication on court costs, please read the 2025 MTAS publication, Municipal court costs : What are they? What should they be? How do we determine them?