Memorandum

City of Lawrence

Legal Services

TO:	Toni Ramirez Wheeler, Director of Legal Services
FROM:	Scott J. Miller, Staff Attorney
Date:	August 12, 2010
RE:	Ordinance 8561 – Jail fees

Section 12-105 of the City Code directs that the municipal judge assess jail fees for anyone who is ordered to serve jail time following conviction of a municipal ordinance violation.  Douglas County charges the City of Lawrence for each day or portion of a day that each City prisoner serves in the Douglas County Jail.  The last time that the ordinance was amended in 2007, the amount charged by Douglas County was $52.00.  That amount has risen every year since then, and will inevitable continue to increase as Douglas County’s greater costs for prisoner care are passed along to the City.

Under the current legislative scheme, the only way to keep assessed rates in lockstep with actual rates is to pass a new ordinance every time the jail rates increase.  This is financially undesirable because of the cost of ordinance publication.

Ordinance 8561 remedies this situation by requiring the judge to assess jail fees based upon the then-current jail rate.  In order to inform the public of the current jail rate, an entry will be made in the City’s municipal fine schedule listing the applicable rate.  It will no longer be necessary, then, to pass additional ordinances merely because the jail rates have increased.  Therefore, I recommend passage of the ordinance.