Commissioners pass two ordinances on final readings

The Marshall County Commissioners approved two ordinances on second and third readings during their meeting on Monday. 

The first was the amendment to the Sheriff’s Date Processing Fee ordinance. The fee is charged to an individual, attorney, or other personnel who want copies of photographs, recordings of radio traffic, and video from dash cams and body cameras from incidents and accidents.  Providing this public information sometimes has information that is not public, so an officer must watch, review, and or listen to the information and redact anything that should not be shared publicly.  

The commissioners approved increasing the hourly fee from $15 to $30, but the state limits the maximum amount allowable to charge to $150. 

There was no public comment on the sheriff’s ordinance amendment, and the commissioners unanimously approved it.

The second ordinance was the Public Defender ordinance, moving Marshall County from its current hired part-time public defenders to a state program that regulates the number of cases a public defender can have and gives the county a 40% reimbursement on their public defender costs annually. 

Marshall County Circuit Court Judge Jeannette Surrisi told the commissioners she’s heard people say it’s just shifting tax dollars.  She said the program has significant benefits, and in 2019, during a House Ways and Means Committee meeting, it was said that Public Defender counties have a 16% lower jail population than counties that aren’t participating, in addition to the reimbursement insurance. The judge said the processing time from the county jail to the Department of Corrections is also quicker, and the report stated that there was a 20% lower recidivism rate. 

One of the benefits Judge Surrisi sees is getting children settled quicker.  When a child is removed from the family into foster care, those counties in the Public Defender program see children out of the home 50 days less than counties using the system we do for Public Defenders in Marshall County. 

With the action the commissioners took on Monday, they will now initiate the process of selecting their appointee who will sit on a three-member public defender board. Within a couple of months, the board will start developing a comprehensive fiscal plan. Their plan will help the County Council make the ultimate decision of moving forward with the Public Defender program through the state.