By DAVE HAMRICK
dhamrick@TheCitizenNews.com

Fayette residents convicted of misdemeanor charges of possession of marijuana have helped the county build up a $75,000 nest egg, and officials are now looking for ways to spend it.

“Currently there's no budget for expenditure of these funds,” said Fayette State Court solicitor Steve Harris, adding that state law requires that the fund be used exclusively for drug abuse treatment and education.

The money comes from surcharges on the usual $1,000 fine for possession of marijuana, authorized by state law. Fayette Superior Court also could levy such surcharges on more serious drug charges, but Harris said the court just never has done so.

When Fayette's State Court was set up in 1996 to deal primarily with misdemeanor cases, the new court did levy the surcharge, which is 50 percent of the fine. At $500 a pop, the fund has accumulated fairly rapidly, he said.

Finance officials at the county have let the money accumulate in a fund, waiting for someone to tell them what to do with it, but that someone has never been appointed. When finance director Emory McHugh recently asked Harris whether a mechanism exists to spend the money, Harris said he discovered there is no such mechanism.

“I'd like to see us use it in a very positive fashion,” said Commissioner Linda Wells when Harris presented the problem to the County Commission last week.

School drug education programs would be a likely beneficiary of the surcharges, but commissioners said they didn't want all the money used that way.

“Many indigent individuals need financial assistance to go through inpatient treatment,” said Harris.

He wants to make sure he is not the one making those decisions, though, Harris said. Because he prosecutes people in court who might later be recipients, he has a conflict of interests, he added.

Commissioners appointed county attorney Bill McNally and county manager Billy Beckett to work with Harris and come up with a procedure for spending the money.