This is the meeting about the regulatory enforcement and fees and court costs.

I will start with introductions to my right.

Good afternoon, Cherry Pollock, Office of General Counsel.

Mr.

Caraher, Council Auditor's Office.

And Rachman Johnson, City Council District 14, I'll be chairing.

And we're talking about 2026 318.

And Cherry, if you could give us and just an overview of what the ordinance is, I did put together a little QA sheet that kind of speaks to what you and I worked on together.

And if anybody's interested, I do have a briefing of the bill so we know what it does and what it brings.

But if you could uh speak to that, please.

So 20 26318 um seeks to make uh a few changes to uh section 609.109 and as well as 634 chapter 634.

Um primarily and the schedule A1 of chapter 609, there's a list of fines costs currently that are assessed when either of you agencies you know when you file a citation uh with the clerk of court, and there is a trial, and there is a um an outcome uh in favor of the city.

Many times it's in favor of the city, and the court will assess um normally it's the 250 dollar fine plus five dollars in court cost.

So this ordinance is actually adding the $10 filing fee uh because that's that is authorized in the statute, the state law.

Um it also just makes a minor corrective changes in uh chapter 634 and chapter 634 just pretty much almost mirrors uh the state statute when it comes to these separate court costs.

There's court costs of $40, $2, $3, and it specifies you know where they're going, teen court, criminal justice, forfeiture fund, and some of it goes back to the clerk's office.

Um essentially, pretty much that's in a nutshell of what this ordinance um pretty much is about.

Very simple.

I know that uh and we'll I'm not gonna jump around, but I do want to make sure this is pretty quick.

That's why we wanted everyone to be here.

So if there are any questions that we're all on the same page, um, if at all possible, Trista, I know, or Miss Carriher, uh, the auditor's office had some questions and issues so that we can move this forward, which is why I deferred the bill at the last meeting.

Could you kind of give me some uh can we get some of those questions answered?

And then I had some questions as well about where does the money go?

And we may not be able to answer it, but at least if we know the questions, it empowers us to make sure this legislation passes successful.

Yes, uh, to the chair.

Our questions really had to do uh mainly with the $10 filing fee um that's being added to our our code.

Uh we reached out to the Clerk of the Court's office when we reviewed this bill, and um based on information we received from the clerk of the court, the ten dollar filing fee is supposed to initially be paid by the city when a case gets filed.

And that ten dollars is meant to offset the court's cost in handling the case.

So they indicated that currently they are not getting that ten dollar filing fee when a case is filed with a clerk of the court's office.

So that's kind of the main that's that's the first issue.

Um, and then the statute outlines basically what happens in in the case based on the the how the case is resolved, who ends up paying that ten dollars.

So if the defendant um doesn't contest the charge, they have to pay the ten dollars, and that gets routed back to the city.

So our question is basically how is the ten dollars going to be budgeted and paid by the city on the front end when the case gets filed, and then we want to ensure that when the ten dollars is paid by the defendant based on the outcome of the case, where that ten dollars gets routed, want to make sure that goes to the correct account based on however it's determined that that will be budgeted.

Do we know and answer chair?

Do you know where the funds go?

Or where they come from?

Because that's been a question.

I have a couple other questions as it relates to that as well.

No, I would definitely defer to the different agencies because they're receiving the monies when uh the payments are made at the tax collector's office, or some cases it's made at the clerk of court and there's a designated account number for each agency, um MCCD, JFRD, uh bid.

Uh so I would definitely defer to any anyone, Chief Gibson, uh, to explain or identify where the money would go.

Does anybody know?

See, that's the issue that we're dealing with.

No one knows where the money goes or where it comes from.

The problem is, I shouldn't there be a Ms.

Carreher, because you are intimately involved with the budget, shouldn't there be in departments or in at least code enforcement or somewhere a line item that says this is the fund that we are pulling these funds from?

Uh yes, to the council member, that's one way it could be handled.

Um the the court filing fee could be budgeted within the individual department, could also be budgeted as a non-departmental expenditure, could be budgeted within the office of general counsel.

There's a couple different ways you could do it.

Um, just it's not being budgeted currently because it's not being paid by the city.

Is it mandated that it be collected?

Um based on my understanding of the statute, it is.

So this is the reason why, and I guess I may need to do something a little bit more formal to ensure that you know we're working with the clerk of court because we don't have an answer to the question.

We're all sitting here and the answer still doesn't exist.

Also, my understanding is that ten dollars needs to be paid for the filing of the fee, if the citation of the citation must be paid by the city when the citation is filed.

If the alleged violator does does prevail, the city would then have to pay a 40 dollar fee to the court.

Am I correct in that understanding?

According to the statute, yes, that's that is required by state law, absolutely.

However, uh in practice, uh it is very rare uh that the city has to pay this because um the majority, I would say probably 95% or more of the cases the city has always pretty much been the prevailing party.

So this $40 has never been an issue for the city to pay it.

But the violator definitely has paid uh the $40 plus eight more dollars, um, the court costs, all of that.

Well, before we get to that though, my my question is I mean, regardless of whether we pay it or not, if the law says the city is supposed to pay it, we need to know what fund it's coming from, and we need to know where it's going, at least on the city side.

So I think that again that seems to be a question for the clerk of the court, which is not here.

So we'll follow up on that.

The other thing is the where does and Tristan can you answer this for me as well?

The ten dollars that are paid back to the city if the city prevails and the alleged violator is um the city prevails in that against the alleged violator, and that $10 fine that is, or $10 court costs, excuse me, that is put toward this particular case is paid back to the city.

Where does that go?

To the council member, my understanding is that it the $10 has just recently uh started being added to the court orders, and it depends on a case-by-case basis.

My understanding is each order has a I'll call it an invoice attached to it, which directs the tax collector on where to deposit the funds.

So it depends.

So, for example, if it's a code enforcement violation, there's an account associated with that.

If it's a animal care and protective services, there might be a different account associated with that.

So the direction is given to the tax collector's office on that uh court order, is my understanding.

At current, so that the council auditor will be able to give us the best information so we can make the decision as the council.

Um I understand clearly there's some pause here because there are questions that aren't answered.

What are the questions uh so we can put on the record that need to be answered for you so that the auditor's office can look at this and say we are okay with moving this forward?

Uh to the council member, our questions would be where is the $10 that is supposed to be paid by the city upon filing?

Where will that be budgeted in the city's budget and what's the financial impact of that?

And on the second side, where upon the resolution of the case, if the city is to pay the funds, where will those come out of?

If the defendant is found guilty and they have to pay the $10, where will that go?

And that, and I've looked through everything and I don't see it.

And and Sherry, I think it's probably what you've said earlier is the fact that we are not that it's not being either collected or put about, and so no one's really looked at it.

But if the state law says it, we need to prepare for it, please.

Please could you come up because we don't have or at least to the podium and uh state your name in the agency?

Thank you.

Hello, I'm Elisa Chow and the product owner of Jax Epics, which is our permitting software.

Um, so I cannot speak to what should be happening or what will be happening, but I can explain on a very small level where the money has been going.

Um, but again, nothing about where it should go.

Where it has been going on the building code enforcement side.

Again, this doesn't touch municipal code compliance or JFRD or other agencies.

But on the building code enforcement side for many years, there has been the five dollar court cost that has been added to invoices by the Jacks Epics permitting system, and that is paid by the defendant, and that money goes to the building code enforcement fund under the building inspections division of public works.

I think there are a lot of questions about where the money should go and who can how the money will come in, leave and then be reimbursed, because that system hasn't been implemented.

The filing fee hasn't been implemented at all.

So who that will belong to when there are multiple different agencies and departments that work with the clerk of court, I think is why there's so many questions.

But that's what's been happening with the, excuse me, with the court cost with the filing fee, that's completely unknown.

And I think everyone's kind of open to direction with how that should work.

Alright, and I I'm kind of glad that they are thank you for that.

Thank you so much.

I'm glad the auditor kind of caught this because it so we can actually make sure that it's substantive.

Um the other question, Trisa, is there if it possible the auditor, because what I'm looking at now, like I did the work that I could.

Are there other besides the two recommendations you made now, which we need to get the answers to, which we will, what are the is there a litany of as was just shared, play things like where it should go, where is it recommended to me, just thinking with conventional wisdom that if it's JFRD that has the the infraction that was filed, those funds should go to JFRD and so forth.

Am I correct in that assumption?

To the council member, that's a policy decision.

I there's a number of ways it could be handled, but that that would make sense.

I would like, and if I need to put it in writing just to request, I'd like for the uh auditor's office to give us a list of recommendations as to where these things need to go.

Um, and if they aren't going there, as as was said earlier, because I think we should get to the bottom of this.

Granted, we are a huge city, there's a lot going on, but when we see issues like this, we we've got to fix them, and so I'm glad we are digging into this so that when we do have as we grow, uh people, you know, this coming up and we have to spend these funds, we need to know where they're coming from and where they're going.

Um I wanted to also put on the record here one of the things I I am sharing because this is a little one of the reasons it's so confusing is because the tax collector's office knows something, the clerk the court knows something, co-compliance knows something, and it's all over the place.

Nobody knows the same thing.

And so I'm hoping that we'll be able to create the space for that.

Um and also I want to say this is not uh a revenue collecting, this is not for revenue.

This is not about revenue.

Uh, it's just about compliance and clarity.

This is something that is already put about on the state level, but the fact is we haven't made the um the correlation with our local code to ensure that it matches the state statute and that is causing confusion, which could, in essence, even if a defendant challenges it, could cause issues in court with the court case or or the compliance issue.

So I want to make sure that we're doing what we need to do to make sure it works.

Um are there any other suggestions from the general counsel side that we do?

Obviously, we'll wait for that memo from the auditor side, but any other suggestions from general counsel?

Yeah, definitely.

I agreed, uh, we can wait for the recommendations uh from the uh um auditor, council auditor's office.

Uh, but also based on what Ms.

Chow has stated that these funds are indeed coming back to the and please correct me if I'm wrong, but these funds are indeed coming back to these various agencies when a defendant pays the fine and the court costs.

And so if it, you know, if you want to just keep it there in their accounts, and then perhaps create that account for the 10 the $10 filing fee.

Maybe you just want to keep it there or the general fund.

So that would just be uh just a little suggestion to keep it in-house and each separate.

That way you know what was paid for JFRD, which violation was for MCCD, and which violation was for MCCD.

I know consumer affairs is here as well, and I understand landscape uh landscape, they also issue citations as well.

So, please go ahead.

Uh Elisa Chow again.

Um I just wanted to clarify.

I do agree that um if you put everything in one bucket, it's gonna lose the context of how it got there.

Um so that's something to think about.

And as a little bit of clarification, part of the reason that there was this confusion.

I do know that up until last year, the city had no way of actually getting funds from the city to the clerk of court, and that was a discussion that happened last year.

They got on the same page with using the same financial system.

Wait a minute.

I'm sorry to interrupt you.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Up until last year.

I only I just want to make sure I heard you.

I only have the context from development services and public works, but it's my understanding that is correct.

Trista?

I'm sure there were higher level ways.

But on the on this it does state in the statute that a portion of those fines do need to stay with the clerk of court.

Um a portion of it, I and I think it was 10%, but there the statute does say that a portion of the fine b and that's for the clerk performing court-related functions, 10% of the total amount of the fines paid to each municipality shall be retained by the clerk of court and to the and to be deposited into the clerk's fine and forfeiture fund.

So that part is cool, but what she was saying is that up until last year, none of the funds were even coming to the city.

They were just, I guess, sitting with the court, clerk.

No, the uh the opposite.

We were provide taking well, maybe on both sides.

I think if we were creating the invoice, we were taking money that should go to the clerk of court and it was staying with the city.

And if they were paying at the clerk of court, and the clerk of court created an invoice, it was staying over there.

But now we're good.

We're getting there.

Trista, do you know any you're the f you're in you don't?

Okay.

This is getting interesting because these are things that I don't think any of us knew, and if that's happening, there could be some funds sitting somewhere that's just accruing when we need sidewalks on Collins Road.

I'm just saying, there's just stuff that needs to happen in the community.

Okay, well, thank you for that.

Uh I'm sorry that the clerk's office was not here, but I will do my part personally to ensure uh I know I reached out and I've kept everybody in the loop uh ad nauseum to ensure that they were informed.

And on emails with you as we and thank you for the the work you've done with the council's office.

All right, so we can get those two questions answered though.

That gets the auditor um what you need to move forward on this bill.

We'll work to do that.

Any other comments from the audience?

Anything that we need to know or share or recommendations that you have about this.

I know we've got a lot of agencies here from the city, and I want to make sure that you have what you need so you can do your jobs.

And I'm so thankful for all of the work that you do to keep our city running, but little things like this can certainly do whale that.

So are there any recommendations?

Please feel free.

That's good.

Wow.

Okay.

Well, if no further ado, that is even shorter, 20 minutes.

I was trying to get us out in 30 minutes.

Um we are hoping to have this information back.

I have deferred this bill for for this cycle, depending on when we get the information back.

I'll look forward to your memo and then of course the information from the clerk's office, and then you and I, you know, on the council side can look through it and see from the general counsel's office.

Is there something else we need to put in?

Please feel free for those in your agencies, please take this, take this back to your agency heads or whomever uh in your teams to let me know.

Feel free to email me directly or cherry.

I mean, there's a whole email trail going around, but either one of us um email and let us know hey, this is something that would make this stronger and better, so that when we do this, I don't like to do like half baked pieces of legislation.

I want to make sure that as much as I can put in here, it's comprehensive so that you have what you need to do your jobs.

Gotcha.

Well, if not any further ado, we got out 10 minutes earlier.

We will call this meeting adjourned.

Uh no public comment, right, Andrew?

Want to make sure any public comment?

Alright, no public comment.

We will call this meeting adjourned at 220.

Thank you all for coming.

I can get back to your podcast.

Well, it's too late.

My bills are.

Oh, okay.

Let's have yelled at me.

Oh, no, look at you.

You yelled at me yesterday.

Yesterday we didn't tell me.

It wasn't really what's going on.

I'm like,