Wednesday, December 6, 2000
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Wednesday, December 6, 2000 |
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Jail dispute holds impact fees hostage
By DAVE HAMRICK
Fayette County commissioners today will discuss how to respond to local cities' ultimatum on impact fees for a new county jail. Commissioners will meet at 3:30 p.m. at the County Administrative Complex. "You can kiss impact fees good-bye" unless the county guarantees space at the jail for inmates arrested in the cities, said Fayetteville Mayor Kenneth Steele during a rancorous meeting of the FUTURE Committee last week. FUTURE (Fayette United Team to Use Resources Effectively) is a three-year-old committee of elected and appointed officials from the county and all the local cities, and is charged with finding ways the governments can cooperate, eliminate duplicate services and save taxpayers money. But on two contentious issues tax equity (see related story) and impact fees for the jail cooperation is an elusive concept. A heated three-hour discussion Wednesday failed to move the county and cities closer on either issue. Impact fees are charged to developers to help pay the costs of new government services and facilities made necessary by growth. If such fees are used to help pay for the jail, it will save current taxpayers about $1 million a year in debt payments, or about a mill in property taxes ($78 on a $200,000 home). County and cities appeared to be on the same page three weeks ago, poised to send impact fee paperwork off for state approval. But in approving the latest version of an intergovernmental agreement to allow for the fees recently, the cities inserted a paragraph guaranteeing that there will be space for city prisoners at the jail for as long as impact fees are being collected, probably 20 years. The county is happy to guarantee space, commission Chairman Harold Bost said, but not for free. The county's interpretation of the language in the agreement is that there would never be an opportunity to charge per diem fees for city prisoners those convicted merely of violating city ordinances housed in the jail. City representatives voiced strong objections to the idea of charging such fees, but at the same time argued that the new language is silent on the subject of fees and should be approved, leaving the fee question to be argued later. "Nobody has ever said we wouldn't accept prisoners from anybody," said Commissioner Greg Dunn. Steele shot back, "You tried to shut the doors of the jail two months ago... admit it!" With overcrowding at the current jail reaching critical levels, commissioners did discuss plans to stop adding new residents to the jail, saying they would have to work out plans to pay other jails to house local prisoners until the jail population was reduced. Prisoners currently are being transported to Union City, where Fayette is paying $45 a day for each inmate. Commissioners were prepared to tell cities they would have to share in that cost, or make their own arrangements, but then a 1994 agreement was discovered. The county had agreed to house city prisoners for free. The agreement is automatically renewed each January, and the county must give notice six months ahead of time if it intends to end the agreement. County leaders said city judges sometimes send people to jail when all they've done is violate a minor city ordinance. County residents shouldn't have to pay to house those prisoners, said Bost. But city leaders said that scenario is simply not happening. Some of the prisoners come from city courts, they said, but they're guilty of serious crimes and municipal court was merely the starting place. "That is a county prisoner regardless of where the arrest was made," said Steele, who argued that, because most of the new building permits are issued within the cities, the cities will be collecting most of the impact fees for the jail. The majority of property taxes also come from within the cities, he said, so most of the ongoing maintenance of the jail comes from city taxpayers. "We all pay the bill," said Steele. "This is our jail, Harold. This is our jail and we cannot allow our citizens to be double-dipped." "You always say that it's going to be our way or no way," responded Bost. "We are not going to accept your way." In their meeting today, commissioners will discuss the 1994 agreement concerning the jail.
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