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Council approves staff approach to request for higher training fee allocation for police and fire
Summary
Police and fire requested raising the per-fine allocation to their joint training fund from $10 to $20; council voted 7–0 to let city management address funding through the annual budget process rather than change fine structure now.
Council considered a request from the police and fire departments to increase the per-citation allocation for their joint training fund from $10 (split $5 each) to $20 (split $10 each). City staff told the council that municipal fines are at a legal cap and cannot be raised, so the city manager recommended addressing the funding need through the annual budget process rather than by ordinance.
Municipal Court Director Jillian Allison provided context for the fiscal scale: gross fine revenue for the fiscal year was about $2.7 million, and a $10 per-fine allocation would equate to approximately $112,330 based on recent gross revenues. Staff estimated that the proposed $10 increase would represent about 5.93% of the court deposits to the general fund for the year cited.
The fee committee had been split and brought the item to council for discussion. Council members debated whether the city manager already had authority to address the matter in the budget; the city manager recommended that management handle the funding through budget adjustments. The council approved that recommendation by a 7–0 roll-call vote.
Council did not adopt an ordinance changing the fine structure at the meeting; instead, staff will consider the request during the annual budget process and report back.
