District attorney's office seeks $12.50 court fee to fund prosecutor operations

Jed Basset, a representative of the district attorney's office, told the Meigs County Commission at its workshop that a state law passed last year allows a $12.50 court cost to be assessed on criminal cases and that the district attorney wishes to adopt that charge locally to fund prosecutorial work.

"It's $12.50 court cost that would be assessed to every criminal court case," Basset said, explaining the charge would be sent to the state and administered there, with Meigs County receiving 5% of the receipts. He said the change is intended to put the DA's office on "equal footing" with the public defender's office, which benefits from a similar court-cost allocation.

Basset said the new fee would effectively replace a smaller number of $75 fraud-and-economic-crime assessments that previously generated discretionary revenue for the office, but that those charges produced fewer receipts because they apply only to certain types of cases. Under the proposal, the county's share would be a small per-case amount — commission discussion referenced roughly $0.62 per case — while the state would administer collections.

Members of the public and some commissioners questioned whether county residents or county government would see meaningful benefit. One attendee asked how much Meigs County would receive from each case and whether existing funds would be lost; the commission and staff discussed that the statute directs collected costs to be used for court services and that a 5% county share was included in the proposal.

Commissioners did not vote on the matter at the workshop. Staff said the proposal would be considered further at an upcoming meeting and that several neighboring counties in the DA's judicial district have already approved the same approach.