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.