SPRINGDALE -- Increasingly expensive traffic tickets and other court fines that bring in revenue have passed the point of diminishing returns, a legislative committee heard Wednesday. Meanwhile, court-related expenses keep going up.
"We're writing tickets people aren't able to pay, and if they can pay anything on them they can't pay it all at once," Michael Lincoln, White County judge, told a joint meeting of the state House and Senate committees on City, County and Local Affairs.
Allowing payment of tickets in installments means the amounts paid and the balances due have to be tracked, Lincoln said. That increases administrative costs. Ticket never paid are tracked too, he said. Unpaid balances on tickets continue to rise, he said.
The state's Administration of Justice Fund, which pays much of the costs for courts through collected fines, took in $39.7 million last year, state figures show. Yet the fund's year-end balance was below $2 million in the last fiscal year. The fund required emergency money from the governor's office three times in 2011 to meet the payroll for court officials. Another $450,000 was transferred from awards from the state attorney general's office in 2012.
"It's begun to implode a little bit, but it's not a crisis yet," Mark Haynes, attorney for the Arkansas Municipal League, told legislators.
The state fund pays the salaries of judges and other court officials, but there are other costs related to court such as staffing and providing court space. Those additional costs are borne by cities and counties. Those local governments are feeling the same strain as the state fund, Hayes and Lincoln said. The people paying the fines face the most strain of all, they said.
"Nobody likes to talk about it this way, but the majority of court costs were for tickets, which were a cash cow," Hayes said. "That's eroded dramatically." The state's share of court costs is now $75, adding to the cost of each ticket. Also, Amendment 80 to the state constitution reformed the courts but also increases court expenses, Hayes said.
Senate committee chairwoman Missy Irvin, R-Mountain View, told the committee to expect a reform measure in the next regular session of the Legislature. "It's clear that restructuring has to take place," she said.
In other business, the committees were told new regulations on water announced by federal agencies would bring practically every body of water in the state, and many ditches, under federal sway.
"The definitions here are so broad, the vast majority of waters in the state would require federal permits to do any work involving them," said Scott Perkins, spokesman for the Association of Arkansas Counties. "The committee should know that there's already an 18 month backlog on permits already, before these regulations go into effect." The new "Waters of the United States" regulations are due to go into effect on Aug. 28.
Congress has passed bills to repeal the regulations, but an administration veto is likely even if one of the bills passes, Perkins said. Several states including Arkansas are appealing the regulations in the courts. The regulations were adopted by the Army Corps of Engineers and the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
"There's not enough people employed by the Corps of Engineers for the EPA to regulate this, are there?" asked Rep. Tim Lemons, R-Cabot, who is a civil engineer. Perkins replied, "No."
NW News on 08/06/2015