OJAI : Jail Booking Fees Overtax City Budget

Ventura County’s new policy of charging cities for booking their criminal suspects into County Jail has tipped Ojai’s budget from black to red, City Manager Andrew Belknap said.

In his midyear report to the City Council for the 1990-91 fiscal year, Belknap said the city’s $4.4 million budget appears generally sound with most expenses and revenues running on track.

But the new jail booking fees that the County Board of Supervisors imposed on cities in September were not included in the budget when the council adopted it last spring, Belknap said. Nor were the new administrative fees that the board imposed to collect property taxes for the city.

As adopted, the budget was supposed to end up with a small surplus of $42,000, Belknap said.

But the county has taken $15,033 from Ojai for collecting taxes in the first six months of the fiscal year, Belknap said. The fees will probably total $17,000 by the time the fiscal year ends in June, he said.

The bill from the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department has had the biggest impact, Belknap said. So far, the Sheriff’s Department has collected $15,720 from Ojai and the booking fees are expected to reach $32,000 by the end of the fiscal year, he said.

Also at its meeting last week, the City Council unanimously voted to support legislation that would repeal a law adopted last year allowing counties to charge fees for collecting taxes or booking suspects in county jails.

All 10 cities in Ventura County have protested the county’s decision to impose the fees.