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Jury News

PAULA HANNAFORD-AGOR

Using Debit Cards to Pay Jurors

Twenty years ago, one of the biggest challenges for jury

managers was ensuring that jurors were paid in a timely

manner. Juror compensation procedures often involved

sending a detailed report of fees owed from the jury ofﬁce to

the court or county ﬁnance division, which then processed,

printed, and mailed the checks to jurors as part of its regular

fund disbursement process. In a reasonably well functioning

court, jurors could generally expect to receive their juror

fees within two weeks of completing jury service, but in

some jurisdictions, the wait could be up to eight weeks. Any

subsequent communications about juror compensation, such

as reports of lost checks or checks returned as undeliverable by

the U.S. Postal Service, also involved a lengthy back-and-forth

between the jury ofﬁce and the ﬁnance division.

Oh, how times have changed! Today court and local ﬁnance

divisions are often at the forefront of efforts to streamline the

juror compensation process to reduce costs, especially stafﬁng

costs related to check reconciliation. Many courts now have

authorization for jury managers to calculate and distribute

checks to jurors directly from the jury ofﬁce using ﬁnancial

software packages that interfaced directly with the jury

automation software. The jury ofﬁce then sent reports to the

ﬁnance division documenting the fees that were paid. Other

courts were able to adapt ATM kiosks to permit direct cash

payments to jurors. I have received sporadic questions over the

past decade whether courts have used prepaid debit cards to

compensate jurors, but only recently learned of a court that has

successfully implemented this approach. The Gwinnett County

Superior Courts in Georgia began using prepaid debit cards

in 2014. I spoke with Abigail Carter, the jury manager for the

Gwinnett County courts, in February to learn more about

the program.

The Gwinnett County Juror

Debit Card Program

The Financial Division for the Gwinnett County Courts, which

historically managed the juror compensation process, initiated

the change to prepaid debit cards. Under the previous process,

the Jury Division forwarded a weekly report to the Finance

Division specifying the amount owed to each juror with the

juror’s mailing address. The Finance Division printed and

mailed checks to jurors, usually within one week of service.

The Finance Division was also responsible for following up

on checks returned by the U.S. Postal Service, reconciling

the check-cashing process, and managing the state-mandated

escheatment process for checks that remained uncashed

after ﬁve years. The Finance Division estimated that the

administrative costs for the juror compensation process at

approximately $5 per juror. The court initiated the transition

to prepaid debit cards by issuing an RFP specifying conditions

for awarding a contract with a ﬁnancial institution, including a

limitation on fees imposed on jurors using the debit card.

Chase Bank was awarded the initial contract with the

court, but was replaced by Key Bank in 2014 after Chase

announced its intention to leave the prepaid-debit-card

market. Implementation of the prepaid-debit-card program

involved a $500 start-up fee plus a $2 charge for each deposit

credited to the prepaid card (a $3 per juror savings over the

previous process). As before, the Jury Division sends a weekly

report to the Finance Division with amounts owed and the

mailing address for each juror. The Finance Division then

sends a report to Key Bank, which deposits the amounts on

MasterCard-issued debit cards and mails them to the jurors

with instructions for activating the debit card. Again, most

jurors receive their debit cards within one week of completing

jury service. Key Bank also manages the escheatment process

on behalf of the Finance Division.

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After jurors activate their debit cards, they can use the cards

like any debit or credit card with MasterCard-participating

vendors or ﬁnancial institutions. Once the debit cards are

activated, jurors have up to one year to exhaust the funds; after

one year, however, Key Bank charges a fee of $1 per month

until the funds are completely exhausted. Once the funds are

exhausted, the debit cards are not converted to credit accounts,

nor do they result in additional fees for jurors.

A Few Complications

For the most part, the Gwinnett County Courts have been very

satisﬁed with the debit-card program, but like most program

innovations, they have experienced a few bumps along the

way. One complication involves the information provided to

Key Bank about each juror. Normally, banks issuing debit cards

have access to the recipient’s Social Security Number, which

is used for identiﬁcation purposes if the recipient needs to

contact the bank’s customer-service ofﬁce for any questions

or problems involving the card. The Gwinnett County Jury

Division does not collect jurors’ Social Security Numbers as

part of its summoning-and-qualiﬁcation process and, thus,

is not able to provide that information to Key Bank. Instead,

it provides the seven-digit Juror ID number plus a two-digit

appendix and the juror’s date of birth as unique identiﬁers.

Many jurors do not know or will not remember their Juror ID

number after completing jury service, however. When jurors

need to contact Key Bank regarding an inquiry about the

debit card, the Key Bank customer-service representatives are

supposed to ask for the juror’s date-of-birth and Zip Code in

lieu of the Social Security Number, but jurors often report that

the Key Bank representatives do not appear to be aware of this

alternate mechanism for verifying the juror’s identiﬁcation.

Another complication arises when jurors opt to withdraw cash

from the debit cards. In Gwinnett County, which employs

a one-day/one-trial term of service, jurors are paid $30 per

day for juror fees. Consequently, most jurors receive debit

cards that are credited with only $30. As most ATMs disburse

cash in $20 increments, jurors can only withdraw $20 from

the ATM and are left with a $10 credit on the debit card. No

fees are imposed if the juror withdraws cash from the debit

card at a Key Bank-afﬁliated ATM, but a $2 fee is imposed

on withdrawals from ATMs that are not afﬁliated with Key

Bank. To avoid the $2 fee, jurors may forgo use of an ATM and

instead ask for cash directly from a teller at the bank. Financial

institutions participating under a MasterCard agreement are

prohibited from charging a fee for converting a MasterCard

prepaid debit card to cash, but some Gwinnett County jurors

have reported that banks are nevertheless charging those fees

unless the juror is already a bank customer.

Finally, because debit cards are mailed by Key Bank rather than

the court, many jurors mistakenly assume that the mailing

contains a “junk mail” solicitation, rather than their juror fee,

and discard it. Key Bank assumes responsibility for replacing

lost debit cards. No fees are incurred for replacing the ﬁrst

card, but a $5 fee may be charged for replacing subsequent

debit cards.

Best Practices for Courts Contemplating

Prepaid Debit Cards to Compensate Jurors

It appears that Gwinnett County was able to avoid some of

the most common complaints about using prepaid debit cards

to compensate jurors through a thoughtful RFP solicitation

that speciﬁcally articulated restrictions on the fees that could

be imposed on debit-card recipients, thus avoiding some of

Many courts now have authorization for jury managers to

calculate and distribute checks to jurors directly from the

jury ofﬁce using ﬁnancial software packages that interfaced

directly with the jury automation software.

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the most common complaints about the use of prepaid debit

cards.

In addition, the federal Consumer Financial Protection

Bureau has recently ﬁnalized federal protections for prepaid-

account consumers that limit fees and other practices that

harm consumers,

which would govern such arrangements in

the future. In the meantime, Ms. Carter offered the following

suggestions for courts investigating the option of prepaid debit

cards for jurors:

• Take the time to document the costs associated with the

existing juror-compensation program, including staff time

to print, mail, and reconcile checks and to manage the

escheatment process.

• Understand the customer-service practices offered by the

ﬁnancial institution managing the debit-card program,

including alternative procedures in place to verify the

debit-card holder’s identity in the absence of a Social

Security Number.

• Understand contractual limits on the use of debit cards

and ensure that jurors receive timely and accurate

information about those limitations during juror

orientation and in the information provided with

the debit card.

Postscript

Recently, Gwinnett County has learned of other vendors

offering prepaid debit cards for courts, including one that sends

blank debit cards to the court and allows the Jury Division to

load funds and distribute prepaid debit cards directly to jurors

before they leave the courthouse, thus saving postage costs

and reducing the potential for cards being lost in the mail or

mistakenly confused with junk mail.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Paula Hannaford-Agor is director of the Center for Jury Studies at the

National Center for State Courts. Contact her at [email protected].

NOTES

1. See, e.g., Christian Berthelson, JPMorgan Accused of Nickel-and-Diming

Jurors on Debit Cards, BLOOMBERG NEWS (Feb. 8, 2017), available at https://www.

bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-08/jpmorgan-accused-of-nickle-and-

diming-jurors-on-debit-card-pay?ncid=newsltushpmgnews.

2. See http://ﬁles.consumerﬁnance.gove/f/documents/201610105_cfpb_

Final_Rule_Prepaid_Accounts.pdf.

3. The vendor is CourtFunds (see its website at www.courtfunds.com),

which reportedly has an existing contract with the Cherokee County courts

to compensate jurors using prepaid debit cards. The NCSC Center for Jury

Studies does not endorse commercial vendors offering technology or other

services for jury operations.

In addition, the federal Consumer Financial Protection

Bureau has recently ﬁnalized federal protections for

prepaid-account consumers that limit fees and other

practices that harm consumers, which would govern

such arrangements in the future.