AAC
at Fayetteville and the University of Arkansas Bowen School of Law; and the Constitutional Officers Fund for the full- time District Judge salaries. Tere are many others, including a couple for which counties receive money: county reim- bursement for jurors and court security grants. Te current appropriation for the State Administration of Justice Fund is about $40 million. So what was the process to determine the county share?
It is set out in Arkansas Code § 16-10-307, which estab- lished the County Administration of Justice Fund. Counties retained an amount equal to the dollar amount collected in the base year of 1994 in court costs and filing fees for county administration of justice expense. Tis did not include those court costs that we collected and remitted directly to state agencies or pro- grams, but those fees and costs we had heretofore kept locally. Tis affected filing fees and court costs in probate division of Circuit Court, which are handled by the county clerk in most instances; filing fees and court costs in other divisions of circuit court, which are handled by the circuit clerk; filing fees and court costs in district court, handled by the district court clerk and the city treasurer since district court collec- tions are to run through the City Administration of Justice Fund before remitting the county its share. It took collabora- tion to develop the numbers to calculate proper shares for each entity. DFA’s Office of Administrative Services sent out forms to the city and county treasurers to verify the fees and costs charged and the amounts collected in 1994. Tere were separate forms for probate court, chancery, Circuit Court Criminal, and Circuit Court Civil. Tey had to be filled out and signed by the appropriate clerk, the county treasurer and county judge. Te forms already contained the various state codes that either required the assessment of certain filing fees or costs or allowed for the assessment of certain costs. Te county could then include any other cost that was not on the form but was being collected by virtue of a local ordinance. After certifying the amount of filing fees and court costs col- lected in 1994, the county had its base number for circuit
P COUNTY LINES, SUMMER 2020
SEEMS TO ME ...
court. You simply divided that total by 12 to get the monthly share of uniform filing fees and costs. Tese county forms would have a place for filing fees; county law library; indigent defense; victim witness; county jail revenue bond; public de- fender investigator; DWI costs; Drug Abuse Fund; prosecuting attorney fees; and others that a county might add. Te Municipal Court form, as it was called then [district
court as we know it since the passage of Amendment 80 in November 2000 with an effective date of July 1, 2001] was a little more complicated. It involved more courts and more people — one part was city revenue and another part was county revenue. Tere was a form for the criminal and traffic division of district court — one for the civil division and one for the small claims division.
Te district
ursuant to Act 1256 of 1995 Administration of Justice Funds were established at the state, county and municipal
levels. Tese funds were established on the books of each entity to credit their share of uniform court costs and filing fees to fund or help fund the programs that each remained responsible for.
court forms con- tained a column for the amount of each cost or fee charged per case, a column for the amount of money collected for each cost in 1994, and a column for the total amount actu- ally disbursed in 1994.
Ten the
amounts had to be broken down to account for what fees and
costs were city monies and what were county monies. Some costs were county only, others were city only, and some were shared. Costs collected for law library, indigent defense, public defender investigator, and prosecuting attorney were county-only costs. City-only costs included police pension, municipal judge and clerk retirement, alcohol treatment pro- gram costs, and city attorney fees. Counties and cities shared things like filing fees, possibly drug abuse fund costs [in some counties], possibly intoxication detection equipment fees, and DWI costs. Once those numbers were calculated, the district court
base revenue for the local Administration of Justice Fund was known. Whatever the total of those various fees and costs were for 1994, you divided it by 12 and had the monthly re- tainage from district court. It was also easy to calculate what percentage was city and what percentage was county. Tat
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