SB1666

For restitution recovered through the Department of Criminal Justice’s existing unclaimed-property claim process on behalf of crime victims, TDCJ must transfer the payment to the clerk of the court that ordered restitution and include the victim’s last known address available to the department, if any. That process concerns property reported in the name of a qualifying convicted, confined offender; it does not let the department seize any person’s unclaimed property. TDCJ must also post an employee contact for county officials’ questions about transferred payments. Final law; Existing recovery conditions.

For restitution ordered as a condition of parole or mandatory supervision, TDCJ continues collecting, depositing and sending payments to the court clerk for payment to the victim. It must now include the last known victim address it has, if any. The specified information sent to the clerk under both provisions is confidential and exempt from public-information disclosure; the employee contact posted online is not a public list of victim addresses. Final law.

Under Section 508.322(e), payments held by the clerk are presumed abandoned if no claim is made before the third anniversary of the initial payment received by the clerk, or if, after a claim, the clerk cannot locate the victim for three years after the last payment to the victim. Both periods were five years. The clerk reports and delivers the unclaimed money to the comptroller under Property Code Chapter 77. Existing procedures allow valid claims after transfer; the three-year rule is not a statement that a victim loses the money forever. Final law; Claims to the comptroller.

The Senate substitute removed the introduced bill’s proposed transfer of unclaimed money to the main crime-victim compensation fund and its detailed past-payment-history requirement. Instead, it kept the existing Chapter 77 route, specified unclaimed-property payment transfers, required available victim addresses and added the county-official contact. The three-year period survived. Senate committee, Senate-passed, House committee and final texts match; no floor amendment is indexed. Introduced; Senate substitute; Senate-passed; House committee; Final law; Version index; Amendment index.

Compare the published text versions in the official text index. A change is not attributed to a specific amendment here without a verified record.

Victims may be easier for clerks to locate when available addresses accompany payments, and county officials gain a designated contact. TDCJ and clerks must handle the transfers and confidential information. Some unclaimed money will reach the state’s abandoned-payment process sooner, but the act does not increase the restitution award or guarantee faster recovery for every victim. Final law; Existing claim process.

The April 23 substitute fiscal note anticipates no significant state or local-government impact and assumes costs can be absorbed with existing resources. The April 21 introduced note instead modeled transfers between two state accounts: $1.580 million in fiscal 2026 and $1.537 million annually in fiscal 2027–2030, with zero net General Revenue-related impact. That account-transfer proposal was removed, so those figures are not enacted-law savings or new victim payments. The introduced note could not estimate the effect of shortening the abandonment period. The act itself makes no appropriation. Substitute fiscal note; Introduced fiscal note; Final law.