County OKs higher court fee
Fines to help pay extra expenses
The Yuma County Board of Supervisors approved doubling a court enhancement fee paid with county Justice Court conviction fines over a three-year period Monday.
The fee is now $20 and will rise to $30 on July 1. Another $5 will be added on the same date in 2018 and 2019 to bring it up to $40.
Gregory Stewart, justice of the peace for District 1 and presiding judge over all three, said the fee currently generates about $415,000 annually and is used to fund about 20 percent of salaries for the justice courts. The rest of the expense comes from the county General Fund.
Overall, the county’s primary fund covers almost $1 million of the court’s operating budget annually. Stewart said expenses are rising and fee collections are falling, so in the future more costs would have to be shifted to the General Fund or be at risk of elimination if the court enhancement fee wasn’t increased.
Stewart said about 46 percent of the revenue comes from non-county residents, since many cases come from Interstate 8 traffic violations or cases originating at inspection stations, checkpoints and ports of entry. “In this way enhancement fees are similar to hospitality taxes, in that they reduce the tax
burden on Yuma County residents,” he said.
Revenue coming into the justice courts has been trending down since 2009 for several reasons, including the elimination of photo radar on I-8 and the frequency at which fees are waived or reduced for defendants who are indigent or have serious financial hardship.
As a result District 2’s contingency budget has disappeared, and the other two courts are going in that direction, Stewart said. One position in the civil division of District 1 hasn’t been filled even though he has been given the go-ahead from county administration based on the caseload, he said, because “I struggle with funding positions that will take our fund balance on a course to zero.”
It could take up to a year and a half for the full impacts of the fee increase to arrive in the JP courts’ budget, he said, but eventually he could be able to hire someone for that job and possibly move others out of the General Fund.
District 2 Supervisor Russell McCloud suggested phasing in the increase, saying a 100 percent increase taking effect was “hard to stomach.” But he admitted his stance was softening from the one he’s taken when the fee increase has been suggested in previous years.
“I was extremely vocal in my opposition, but especially in light of the information we’ve gotten today, I probably would modify that position. The board is typically user-pay, where possible,” he said.
Board Chairman and District 4 Supervisor Tony Reyes said putting the funding onus on defendants who are convicted also made it easier to pass the increase.
“There was a misconception, including me, that this would apply to filing fees,” he said. “And those are the people who have been wronged, and feel they have to file a case for it, would have to pay, and make it more expensive for those who already suffered some sort of problem, some sort of disruption in their lives, and make it even harder for them to access the justice system.”
District 5 Supervisor Lynne Pancrazi pointed out the current filing fee for civil, small claims and eviction cases is $10.
No members of the public spoke about the fee increase. Also on Monday: • The board delayed a vote on the county’s final budget for fiscal 2017-18, which begins July 1, for one week because the accompanying Truth in Taxation hearing was re-advertised, after the Arizona Tax Research Association took issue with the numbers used to portray the expected property tax increase on a $100,000 house, a state requirement.
Rescheduling for June 26 means that two out of the five supervisors will be out of town when the $243 million budget vote is taken, leaving just the minimum of three supervisors available to approve it. Reyes urged McCloud and Porchas to try to call in for the special session, in case something happened to one of the three expected to show up.
“I don’t want to hear anyone saying, “Well, I didn’t vote for that,’” Reyes joked.
• Approved a $1.6 million agreement between the health district and Horizon Health and Wellness for Title 36 mental health services in the county for the upcoming fiscal year.
• OK’d a request from the sheriff’s office to apply for a grant from the federal COPS Hiring Program to allow the sheriff’s office to hire four full-time deputies. If YCSO’s application is successful, the board would then decide if the county could afford to accept the grant.
• Approved the county housing department’s fiscal 2017-18 operating budget of $1.2 million and section 8 housing voucher program of $3 million.
• Approved formation of an improvement district for the Sun Leisure Estates water system, a neighborhood at the southeast corner of 4th Avenue and 56th Street.
• Endorsed sending a letter of support from the board for the Yuma County Farm Bureau’s efforts to press the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to change how the maximum levels for PM10 and ozone pollution are enforced.
• Executive Director Craig Sullivan of the Arizona County Supervisors Association made a presentation about the results of its lobbying during this year’s legislative session.
• Held a work session about county policy on parks, which will be detailed in a later story.