County is owed $661,137

The amount of court costs owed to Jay County is lower than originally thought.
But county council members say it’s still worth attempting to collect.
The county is owed $661,136.61 — $418,310.67 in superior court and $242,825.94 in circuit court — in uncollected court costs from 2006 to 2014.
A number first presented in 2009 by county clerk Ellen Coats — $3.9 million — also included money that would go to the state or parties owed restitution.
The public defense administration fee, for example, is one of several that goes entirely to the state.
Other fees are split between the county and the state. When that’s the case, Coats said, partial payments get split accordingly.
The county can’t take its full share up front and pass along the state’s portion later.
“I guess it doesn’t matter what the amount is,” council member Gary Theurer said after learning it was lower. “If it’s out there … we need to see what we can get.”
Council member Ted Champ agreed, saying while it’s disappointing that there’s less money owed, the county still needs to go after it.
Coats mentioned the unpaid costs in September as county council, having taken $500,000 from the rainy day fund to cover 2016’s budget, discussed how to budget better for 2017.
At December’s council meeting, Theurer suggested the commissioners look into what could be done about the unpaid fees.

In turn, county attorney Bill Hinkle has taken over researching the matter, commissioner Faron Parr said.
“I think the best way to approach that is a collection agency,” Hinkle said.
Coats plans to contact Pioneer Credit Recovery, the agency the county uses to collect docket fees for child support payments, to see whether it would be interested in this task.
After taking its 30 percent fee, the agency has collected $116,830 — $90,727 for the county and $26,103 for the state — of the $365,000 owed in child support in Jay County.
Court costs are worth pursuing as long as it’s profitable to do so, Theurer and Champ said. That shouldn’t become a problem if the county uses an agency that only takes fees out of what it has collected.
In Blackford County, the clerk’s office is getting a better deal.
The county is pursuing unpaid traffic fines through a collection agency that charges ticketed drivers an extra fee, chief deputy clerk Tricia Milholland said. Blackford County gets 100 percent of the cost of the ticket.
Once more traffic tickets are paid off, the county will have the agency, Eagle Accounts Group, switch its focus to court costs, Milholland said.
In Randolph County, judges, rather than collection agencies, check up on those who owe fees.
“Our judges pull them back in for fine and cost hearings,” county clerk Laura Martin said.
If offenders pay at least $20, they don’t have to go to that month’s hearing. If they make no payment and don’t show up for the hearing, the judge may authorize their arrest.
Jay Superior Court Judge Max Ludy expressed doubt that jail time would be helpful in getting money from someone who simply doesn’t have it. Many defenders in criminal cases are indigent, he said.
And he doesn’t feel it’s an option for judges to pursue the fees.
“I can’t on my own bring people in to check and see if people are paying their fees,” he said, adding that someone — a probation officer or attorney, for example — has to file a petition in order to trigger further action by the court.
Once a judge has made a decision, it’s up to others to enforce it. If Ludy, unprompted, attempted to collect fees, he’d be an “advocate” for the county, he said.
“You’re supposed to be neutral and detached,” he said.
However it is done, the attempt to collect unpaid fees, while important, won’t solve the county’s budget struggle.
County council took half a million dollars from the rainy day fund In September after departments did not cut their budgets as deeply as requested, with some making no cuts. Council has since hired Greg Guerrettaz of Financial Solutions Group to review the county’s finances and make recommendations.
It will be difficult to make cuts, Champ said, but it will have to be done for the next budget.
And council will need to start the budget process earlier in the year, Theurer said.
“One thing that we’re going to have to do in 2017 is live within our means,” Champ said.