Relating to the payment of restitution.

Contracts

• Settlement & Restitution Agreements: Review active agreements where criminal restitution is a component. Ensure payment schedules align with the new 3-year abandonment risk.
• Third-Party Collections: If you utilize outside counsel or agencies to track criminal judgments, amend their engagement letters to require status checks on funds held by court clerks every 24 months, rather than the previous standard of 48 months.

Hiring/Training

• Accounts Receivable/Legal Staff: Train staff responsible for recovering losses from criminal proceedings to proactively update the organization's address with *both* the sentencing court clerk and the TDCJ Victim Services Division. Passive reliance on the state to forward checks is now a higher-risk strategy.

Reporting & Record-Keeping

• AR Aging Adjustments: Update internal accounting protocols to flag restitution receivables as "at risk of abandonment" at the 30-month mark.
• Data Privacy: If your organization receives data regarding restitution (specifically involving other victims in multi-party cases), you must segregate this information. The law explicitly classifies victim contact information transferred from TDCJ to the Court Clerk as confidential and exempt from the Public Information Act.

Fees & Costs

• No New Fees: There are no new filing fees.
• Financial Risk: The "cost" is the potential total loss of restitution funds if they are deemed abandoned after 3 years.