Dunn County board rejects sheriff’s dept. booking fee
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
MENOMONIE — The Dunn County Board has approved allowing the Dunn County Sheriff’s Department to charge additional fees but has rejected a booking fee that would have been imposed on people who have not been convicted of a crime.
“I have a problem with a $25 booking fee (that would impose) a punishment prior to due process,” said Mike Rogers, county board supervisor from Menomonie.
Under due process, people are innocent until proven guilty, and charging a booking fee when someone is arrested and booked into the county jail but has not been convicted of a crime imposes a punishment on an innocent person, he said.
The fee structure proposed by the Dunn County Sheriff’s Department would have charged $25 to any person being booked into the Dunn County jail and then would have allowed that person to apply in writing for a refund of the booking fee if no criminal charges were filed, if the person was found not guilty of criminal charges or if the charges were dismissed.
Under the circumstances proposed by the fee ordinance, people also would have the “burden of getting their money back,” Rogers said.
According to the proposed ordinance, after submitting a written application for a refund, the Dunn County sheriff would have to approve the refund, and then the county could refund the booking fee.
Rogers suggested an amendment for the ordinance that would remove the $25 booking fee and would instead allow the county’s circuit court judges to impose the $25 fee upon conviction of a crime.
The amendment to the ordinance was unanimously approved on a voice vote of the Dunn County Board.
Other fees
Other provisions of the ordinance include a $45 fee for the sheriff’s department to serve a summons or any other process for commencement of an action, writ, an injunction, subpoena or any other order, plus travel reimbursement at the current IRS rate.
In addition, any person who is posting bail on a charge from an agency outside of Dunn County will be required to pay a $10 fee.
Anyone who is served a warrant by, or on behalf of, the Dunn County Sheriff’s Department also will be required to pay a $50 fee for each warrant served.
None of the Dunn County Board supervisors expressed specific objections to any of the additional fees in the ordinance.
Questions
Diane Morehouse, county board supervisor from Menomonie, said she wondered what would happen if someone does not have the ability to pay the fees.
Do the fees “accumulate,” or are there additional charges if they cannot pay? Morehouse asked.
When someone is convicted, and fees and fines are imposed, many people cannot pay the money right away and go on a payment plan, said Nick Lange, Dunn County corporation counsel.
The ordinance does not contain any additional fees, and the ordinance is not intended to increase criminal liability, he said.
Jim Zons, county board supervisor from Colfax, said many people who encounter law enforcement are “down on their luck” in some way.
“I guess I have a problem with the whole thing,” he said.
Robin Sweeny, county board supervisor from Menomonie, wondered if other parts of the ordinance needed to be modified to remove the $25 booking fee, particularly the first paragraph imposing the fee.
Deleting the second paragraph of that section and replacing it with language to allow a judge to impose the booking fee upon conviction modifies the first paragraph imposing the fee, Lange said.
While the other fees in the ordinance are more appropriate, the booking fee, if it applied to all people booked into the county jail, also would impose a fee on people who were arrested erroneously because of mistaken identity or some other factor, Lange said.
Neither of Dunn County’s circuit court judges were at the county board meeting, and Dunn County Sheriff Kevin Bygd was not at the county board meeting as well.
Sheila Stori, county board supervisor from Menomonie, said she wished that a judge or the sheriff were at the meeting to answer questions about the fees.
A motion to approve the amended ordinance imposing additional fees by the Dunn County Sheriff’s Department, but not a $25 booking fee unless imposed by a judge after conviction of a crime, was approved by the county board on a voice vote.
Several county board supervisors voted “no” on the motion to approve the fees.
