State lawmakers are required to consider the fiscal impact a filed bill would have on both the state government and local governments. In order to meet that requirement, the Legislative Budget Board (LBB) is responsible for determining the fiscal impact of bills. During the legislative session, the County Information Project (CIP) often serves as a resource to the LBB. In response to requests from the LBB, the CIP provides information on the projected impact of certain bills. Those projections are then used by the LBB as part of the fiscal notes for those bills.

In responding to several information requests from the LBB, the CIP has recently been digging into Office of Court Administration (OCA) data on county case loads. Every month each court provides a report to OCA on the number of new cases filed, the number of convictions, etc. by type of case. That data is then made available through OCA’s annual report as well as through a searchable online database.

The accompanying map shows a comparison of how the number of new DWI and DUID cases filed in county level courts has changed from 2000 to 2008.1 Unfortunately, it is not possible to look at only the DWI2 or only the DUID cases since they are reported as a single category. The gray color represents the 13 counties where either data was missing for 2000 or the county reported zero such cases in 2000 making it impossible to determine a percentage change. From 2000 to 2008, 115 counties saw either a decrease in the number of new DWI and DUID cases filed in county level courts or no change in the number. Only 90 counties reported an increase in the number of such cases filed. Interestingly, the majority of those 90 counties are located east of a line drawn from Wichita to Webb. Part of the reason might be demographics. Many counties west of this line have been losing population while those east of the line have been growing.

Obviously this cannot be the only reason. Many of the urban counties such as El Paso, Harris and Tarrant actually saw a drop in the number of new DWI and DUID cases file while others such as Dallas and Tarrant saw an increase. This would tend to indicate a lack of correlation between population and the number of such cases filed.

An alternative or contributory reason might be indigent defense. The Texas Fair Defense Act, passed in 2001, might have resulted in more defendants obtaining a lawyer, which may have resulted in more plea bargains or fewer filed cases.

Overall, the state saw a 3.1 percent increase in new DWI and DUID cases, growing from 89,306 in 2000 to 92,037 in 2008.

3 Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. Comptroller’s Economic Outlook. 12 December 2008. Available online at http://www.texasahead.org/economy/outlook.html.