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Owens Cross Roads officials flag $190,000 municipal court shortfall, propose work session on reducing 25% charge
Summary
City staff told officials the municipal court has accumulated roughly $190,000 in unpaid operational charges; staff described the current 25% facility/utilities fee and council members proposed pursuing a work session with the accountant to explore lowering the rate or other fixes.
City staff reported that the municipal court has accumulated about $190,000 in charges owed to the city, prompting officials to consider a follow-up work session to examine whether the court’s 25% facility-and-utilities charge should be reduced.
Christie, who manages the bookkeeping referenced in the report, said the figure reflects ongoing operational-cost allocations the city applies to the court. “Every week they accumulate costs every payroll period… they don't earn enough to support themselves,” Christie said, describing how the city charges a 25% share for items such as the building utility bill, water usage, Internet and certain phone lines. Christie said she keeps a spreadsheet of the balances and restarted the tracking at the request of officials.
Officials recalled earlier splits that were higher — “at one time it was 60/40 and then it was dropped 70/30,” one participant said — and that roughly a year and a half ago the charge was reduced to 25%. Several officials argued 25% may be unrealistic given the court’s revenue and suggested lowering the percentage to a level the court could actually pay (comments discussed 5%–10% as examples) or otherwise developing a repayment plan.
The meeting also included a reminder that state law requires any court revenue above a specified threshold be remitted to the state; a speaker summarized that “anything over 10% … has to go to the state,” noting that state and other statutory distributions are deducted before local allocations. Christie and members noted the practical effect: the court’s receipts are first apportioned to statutorily required recipients, leaving limited net revenue for local operational offsets.
Officials asked that the city accountant join a dedicated court-session or work session so the council can examine the court’s budget and decide on a path forward. Christie confirmed she has contacted the accountant to attend and said: “I keep a spreadsheet of it all… we can go through the bills for November and if there's still $4,000 in there, I'll move a couple and take it off the list.”
The discussion ended with members agreeing the matter should move to a work session for detailed review rather than being resolved immediately during the regular meeting.
The meeting did not adopt a change to the court’s charge; staff were directed to schedule the accountant and a follow-up session for further analysis.
