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Thursday, November 08, 2007
Ind. Decisions - All is not over in the Clerk County probation fees dispute
The most recent ILB entry in the case of Clark County Council and Clark County Auditor v. Daniel F. Donahue, Cecile A. Blau, Vicki Carmichael, and Steven M. Fleece, the probation fees decision, was Sept. 29th.
Ben Zion Hershberg of the Louisville Courier Journal reports today about the long-standing dispute under the headline: "Dispute over fees continues in Clark: Council's lawyers ask court to rehear case." Some quotes:
A court filing by lawyers for the Clark County Council seeks an Indiana Supreme Court rehearing of the council's probation fee dispute with the county's judges, a move that angered the judges and surprised some council members."In my opinion, the Clark County Council's decision to seek a reconsideration of the unanimous decision of the Indiana Supreme Court was another in a series of mistakes that have delayed the resolution of the issue," Superior Court Judge Steven Fleece said. * * *
The dispute is over the council's appropriation of hundreds of thousands of dollars collected from probationers by county courts since 2004.
During a fiscal crisis three years ago, the council used the probation user fees, which help pay for probation services, to cover other court expenses that previously had been paid from the general fund.
The judges argued successfully before a special judge and later before the Supreme Court that the council overstepped its authority in saying how the funds were to be used.
The fees, the Supreme Court said, are to be budgeted by the county judges within guidelines set by state law, which says the funds are to be used to supplement probation officer salaries and to enhance probation programs.
The council can determine how much of the user fees to appropriate from year to year but must follow the judges' decision on how the money is to be used, the Supreme Court said. * * *
The judges have ordered a financial analysis of how much of the probation user fees have been spent improperly, Abbott said. The council and the judges are waiting for the analysis to decide how much should be repaid so they can settle the case, he said.
[Council President Dave Abbott] said the council's lawyers told him the petition for a rehearing was filed because the deadline was approaching for such a step. The petition asks the Supreme Court to make its order "prospective," taking effect in the future, rather than requiring the council -- and other county councils that may have acted the same way -- to repay their courts for improperly taking authority in the past over probation fees.
The petition argues that requiring such repayments would be too disruptive for county governments.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 8, 2007 06:08 AM
Posted to Ind. Sup.Ct. Decisions