BENTONVILLE — Benton County mayors agreed Wednesday to divide the cost of district court judges among the cities according to population and case load.
Meeting as the Benton County Intergovernmental Cooperation Council, the mayors and County Judge Bob Clinard agreed paying according to population and case load was a fair system. The question of how to pay the local share of the cost of the district court judges was raised at an earlier meeting by Decatur Mayor Charles Linam, who objected to the amount being assessed to his city.
At A Glance
About District Court
District courts have jurisdiction over city and county (within the surrounding areas of the court) traffic, misdemeanor, city and county ordinances, and civil and small claims cases if the defendant resides in the district. The court is under the direction of a district judge, who is elected to a four-year term.
Source: Staff Report
“We were being asked to pay $6,656, and now we’ll be paying $2,377,” Linam said of the change in cost under the new formula.
Sarah Daniels, county comptroller, said the original formula was set up by the state and the cities’ share was based on the costs of the cities’ municipal courts.
“When the state set up the pilot program, which consolidated municipal courts into district courts, the state began paying for half of the district judges’ salaries and the county and the cities cumulatively paid the other half of the judge’s salaries,” Daniels said.
“There are four district courts in Benton County — Rogers, Siloam Springs, Bentonville and Benton County West. The judges’ salaries for these four courts are paid half by the state and half by the cities that utilize each court. The four district courts in Benton County are further divided into two divisions. Division 1 includes Rogers District Court, Siloam Springs District Court and Benton County West District Court. Division 2 covers Bentonville District Court.”
“The cities’ portion of half of the judges’ salaries was initially figured pro rata to the cities based on their municipal judges’ salaries as paid the year immediately preceding the pilot program,” Daniels said.
“The proportionate share of each of the cities’ cost (half of salary) of judges’ salaries was calculated by the state by using the base salary paid to the municipal judge for each city before the pilot program began. Each city judge’s salary as compared to the sum total of all municipal judges’ salaries before the pilot program, is how the percentage was figured on each participant per division,” she said.
Highfill Mayor Stacy Digby said he has no objection to paying a share of the cost. Highfill was omitted from the original formula since the city had no municipal court at the time the district courts were created. He said he thinks the number of court cases will fluctuate sufficiently that the Intergovernmental Cooperation Council should review the funding regularly. Highfill’s costs will go from zero to $3,159 under the revised formula.
“There’s a good chance this year will be our highest year since we’ve made some changes in our Police Department,” Digby said. “I think it needs to be reviewed on a yearly basis. This just appears to be a low year for him and a high year for me.”
Other participants in the funding for Division 1 saw changes in their cost also. Benton County’s cost dropped from $75,188 to $41,982. Rogers’ share rose from $30,000 to $59,706. Bethel Heights, Little Flock, Gentry and Sulphur Springs all saw their cost decrease. Siloam Springs, Centerton, Lowell and Gravette each saw their share of the cost increase.
A similar funding formula will be developed for Division 2 after the cities involved provide the information on their case load and population.
“We’ll apply the same rationale this fall,” Bentonville Mayor Bob McCaslin said, adding he thinks the share of the cost for the cities in that division “are not going to change materially.”