Avoyelles Police Jury, Marksville spar on Ward 2/City Court funding

In a “half-full glass” and “silver-lined cloud” way of thinking, the recent meeting of the Avoyelles Police Jury and Marksville City officials can be said to have at least opened up a line of communication between the two camps over the thorny issue of funding for the Ward 2/Marksville City Court.

Unfortunately, at least at this time, the two sets of government officials aren’t saying much more to each other than they have been saying among themselves.

In short, the March 30 “work session” didn’t yield any break-through moment in the two-year debate, but it did raise one or two promising possibilities to explore.

Mayor John Lemoine, apparently only half-joking, asked Police Jury President Charles Jones if the jury would agree to pay for a majority of the court’s operating expenses in exchange for receiving all of the fines generated by the court. His “recommendation” was the reverse of the Police Jury’s wish list item that the city reinstate a “gentleman’s agreement” that existed for a few decades in which Marksville paid the bulk of the court’s operating costs and received all of the fines from the court.

PRIOR AGREEMENT

A few years ago, that arrangement stopped being profitable and became a money pit for the city. That prompted Lemoine and the City Council to unilaterally end the agreement and force the Police Jury to pay half of the costs -- as required by the law that created the court.

Since that action, the Ward/City Court sued the City of Marksville over the funding issue and won.

The Police Jury agreed to the funding plan before it went to court, so did not have to pay any portion of what Lemoine said was almost $80,000 in legal fees incurred in the suit.

Lemoine’s comment came just a few minutes after he bitterly complained that the city is paying the same $104,000 a year that the Police Jury pays to fund the court budget, but “we collected $6,000 in fines last year and you collected $70,000. We’re real bad in the hole.”

The Police Jury spent almost $35,000 more than it collected, Jones said. Lemoine said the city spent almost $100,000 more that it received in fines.

Lemoine said the Police Jury is getting virtually all of the fines collected by the court.

“And they will keep getting most of the fines,” District Attorney Charles Riddle said, noting that it is his discretion to prosecute the misdemeanors and traffic cases heard in that court either as a violation of state law or of a city ordinance. Fines collected for those cases prosecuted under the state statutes are sent to the Police Jury. Those prosecuted as infractions of a city ordinance are sent to City Hall.

“I work for the Police Jury and will continue to work for the Police Jury,” Riddle added.

Lemoine said most of the misdemeanor charges and tickets are the result of the Marksville Police Department’s efforts, which costs the city about $1.4 million a year.

NOT A MONEY-MAKER

He said he realizes the Police Department is not supposed to be a money-making source. He said he mentioned the police budget only to let the parish understand the city’s expenses in the justice system are not limited to paying for half of the court’s operating expenses. Marksville also has to pay for the utilities and upkeep of the city-owned building that houses the court and its offices.

Jones also pointed out that most of the action in the misdemeanor court involves Marksville, and not the unincorporated communities of Ward 2. Jurors contend it is unfair that the parish pay half of the court’s operating costs when only a small part of the court’s action falls outside of the city.

Riddle tried to play the role of King Solomon in this particular drama, proposing the Police Jury might be willing to pay a little more than the $18,000 statutory minimum it had been paying under the previous agreement, but considerably less than the $104,000 it is paying to cover half of the court’s budget. In exchange, Riddle suggested, the Police Jury might be willing to forego any of the fines “just to get out of the court business.”

Neither set of officials openly embraced that idea, but did say after the meeting that at least some options were raised that might produce an agreement between the two governing bodies. One other issue that was raised was the need for action to be taken to collect unpaid fines.

1,000 WARRANTS

Riddle said Ward/City Court has a backlog of about 1,000 warrants for unpaid fines that have not been served. He said city police are authorized to serve warrants in the city limits. If the department participated in that effort, the court could collect more revenue.

Lemoine said city police used to serve City Court warrants on their off-duty time, but that practice ended.

Riddle said the ward/city marshal’s office or city police need to be “encouraged” to serve the warrants. He emphasized that any payment for that job must be on a per-hour basis and not on a per-warrant-served basis.

While it shouldn’t be an issue, there is still a problem concerning which government entity would receive the money if all warrants were served and collected. Under the current allocation of fines collected, a windfall from warrants could make the court profitable for the Police Jury without helping fill the “hole” the city is in.

Riddle also told the jurors and council members that they control funding for the court and have a right to accept or reject a budget presented by the court.

“We questioned some of those expenses and it ended up costing us $80,000,” Lemoine said, to a smattering of chuckles. Jones said he sat down with Ward/City Court officials “and went over the budget, item by item” and found only one request the Police Jury found unreasonable -- $15,000 for City Court employees’ raises.
Jones said jurors could not approve paying for the court employees’ raises when they are unable to fund a raise for parish employees.

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