Published: February 15, 2006 02:34 pm            

Camm trial dragging on county’s coffers

Need for part-time public defender stressed at meeting

Breakout stat

432

Percentage increase in felony cases handled by Floyd County public defenders from 1998 to 2005.



There just wasn’t enough money to go around at Tuesday night’s Floyd County Council meeting.

The council opened the meeting by appropriating $1.65 million — including $1 million from Economic Development Income Tax money and $600,000 from the riverboat fund — to pay for the David Camm murder trial, M.L. Reisz building purchase and 64 handicap-accessible voting machines. After that appropriation was made, there was little left for others.

Public Defender J. Patrick Biggs asked the council for an additional part-time public defender. He said in 1998, the Floyd County public defender’s office handled 168 felony cases. That number jumped to 893 in 2005.

Biggs said in order to receive 40 percent reimbursement from the state, the case load needs to be at a manageable level. Right now, he said, it is not.

County Council member Randy Stumler asked Biggs if there was something that could be done to eliminate crime.

“It seems like all we do is spend money on crime,” Stumler said.

Biggs said most of the felonies are drug related.

“These are just a lot of poor people that don’t have much going for them,” Biggs said. “This is how they get by.”

County Council President Ted Heavrin said placing resource officers in middle and high schools have deterred crime. He also told Biggs that the council would consider his request for $36,400 to pay for an additional public defender.

“We’ll talk to the commissioners and see where we can find some money,” he said. “We don’t want to jeopardize the state reimbursement.”

New Albany-Floyd County Parks Director Bill Koehler and the Parks Board asked the council to pass a resolution to create a Parks Cumulative Building Fund. The tax rate would not exceed $.0167 per $100 assessed value of a home. It would generate an additional $140,000 a year to help repair the parks facilities. The city already has such a fund in place.

However, Heavrin said this would not be the time to ask taxpayers to pay an additional tax when state legislators are battling over what to do about property taxes. He also said with so much of the county money going to the Camm trial, there is little left.

“After the trial maybe we will be able to get money out of riverboat to help the parks,” Heavrin said.

Koehler said the Parks Board tried to establish a cumulative fund in 1991, but it was thrown out due to a technicality.

“We still have the same needs as we did 15 years ago,” he said. “I think we should let the people decide.”

Heavrin and the council agreed to table the topic for a later date.

“There is just no money,” he said. “If we didn’t have EDIT or riverboat funds, we would have to sell something or lay a lot of people off.”

        

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