The Pulaski County Quorum Court Budget Committee gave preliminary approval to several budgets Tuesday evening, including $37,000 more to the 6th Judicial Circuit prosecuting attorney's office to make up for revenue losses connected to the diminishing hot-check program.
Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley is asking for $60,009 more for his office next year compared with this year, $37,000 of which is directly related to a loss in hot-check funds. That $37,000 would cover printing case file folders, supplies, police officer gear and uniforms, alarm monitoring, shredding services, mileage reimbursement, a copy machine, an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette subscription, and cable and Internet services. All of those things previously were paid for by hot-check fee revenue, according to an explanation of the increases provided to the Quorum Court with the office's budget request.
The committee approved the request without objection Tuesday night 7-0, with Justice of the Peace Paul Elliott, R-Maumelle, absent.
Hot checks are checks written to businesses that bounce because of insufficient funds. When a check bounces, the person who wrote it can opt to immediately write a good check to the business or his case can end up in court, where the check writer often pays the original amount and a hot-check fee -- up to $30 -- that goes to the prosecuting attorney's office.
The Arkansas Legislature increased the maximum amount of money that a person could be ordered to pay in hot-check fees from $25 to $30 in 2011 under Act 1012.
Hot-check fees once paid for the four full-time staff members needed to handle the cases with money to spare. Jegley, who's been prosecutor since 1997, began using the funds for other purposes, such as training and supplies.
Ten years ago, hot-check fees supplied $450,734 to Jegley's office.
In 2014, it infused $176,778. Jegley expects even less this year, saying last week that he'd be surprised if his office took in more than $130,000.
The prosecuting attorney's office also has remitted hot-check fees to Pulaski County in the past, but it has not in four years.
Pulaski County's cut of hot-check fees has shrunk from $154,980.25 in 2005 to $0 since 2011.
Comptroller Mike Hutchens said the county is always looking for ways to make up for lost revenue, but it is limited in what it can do related to hot checks by law.
Prosecuting attorney's office administrator Mara Malcolm presented the office's budget to the committee this year, telling committee members that the office continued to have responsibilities that hot-check revenue could no longer pay for.
"Hot checks have been our life," she said after the meeting. "People don't write checks anymore."
People mainly use debit and credit cards to pay for things, and larger businesses usually don't pursue action on hot checks, Jegley said in an interview last week.
Arkansas Prosecutor Coordinator Bob McMahan conducted a survey last week of the 40 or so hot-check offices in the state. Of the 25 that responded, he said, each one had experienced a decline in revenue from hot-check fees during the past 10 years.
"They've all had a moderate to significant decline in recent years," said McMahan, adding that offices in less populated judicial districts were less affected.
"At least about 10 different districts have gone to their quorum courts to ask for more money," McMahan said.
Now, Jegley's office is staffed by one part-time employee to handle the smaller workload.
But out-of-state training is no longer as common, and other supplies still are necessary, Jegley said.
External fees related to varying levels of crime are common. For example, counties receive general fund revenue from court fines and fees and bail. Those amounts have fluctuated each year.
Prosecuting attorneys receive hot-check fees and a 20 percent cut of civil asset forfeitures. The forfeitures usually come from excessive amounts of money found connected to criminal activity, such as money found alongside drugs during a bust.
According to Jegley, civil asset forfeiture has remained steady over the years. The hot-check fee revenue losses have hurt his ability to provide comparable training for attorneys in his office.
Jegley said no other options had crossed his mind but to ask for a budget increase from the Quorum Court.
"This office is one of the largest law firms in the state," he said. "We get a lot of bang for the buck."
McMahan said other districts also used hot-check funds to support hot check staff, but he said he didn't believe the money had ever been used to pay for the salaries of nonhot-check employees.
Many of those larger districts also had to cut their hot-check staff members, he said, because of a loss in revenue and a lack of need.
Also Tuesday, the Quorum Court Budget Committee gave preliminary approval to mostly unchanged budgets for the assessor's office, the Quorum Court and the public defender's office.
The public defender's office requested $14,000 to pay for increased printing costs and the new responsibility of having to pay for pretrial transcripts once paid for by the state.
Metro on 10/07/2015