Carbon County is near the top of the pack when it comes to its rate of collections for court costs, fines and restitutions.

According to the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts, in 2015, Carbon County collected $2,784,396.26, which represents a collection rate of 37.46 percent and ranks second in the state overall in this area, behind only Centre County, which had a collections rate of 50.04 percent."While that number can seem underwhelming, it is still encouraging to see that it ranks second out of 67 counties within the commonwealth," Eric D. Johnston, director of the Carbon County Bureau of Collections, told the county commissioners via email.Commissioner Thomas J. Gerhard, who reported on the email from Johnston, said that it is impressive that out of all the counties in Pennsylvania, Carbon County is the second highest in the collections rates."It's a tribute to the staff working in the collections office," he said.But the money collected from court costs, fines and restitutions doesn't stay in Carbon County.According to the State of the Carbon County Judiciary report filed by Roberta Brewster, court administrator, last month, of the $2.78 million collected, $1,756,984.72 goes to the state, $211,835.41 goes to municipalities and the remaining $419,255.34 stays in the county and is "disbursed between restitution victims, constable/sheriff costs, bail postings, central booking fees for electronic fingerprinting and other miscellaneous costs."Neighboring counties Schuylkill, Monroe, Lehigh and Northampton are significantly lower in the group.Schuylkill County only had an 11.38 percent collection rate while Monroe had a 23.88 percent rate, Lehigh County recorded a 34.52 percent rate and Northampton County had a 33.3 percent rate.