LA HABRA : Booking Fees to Be Passed On to Convict

In an effort to recover some of the estimated $100,000 in booking fees the city pays to the Orange County Jail annually, the City Council voted unanimously this week to adopt an ordinance that will enable the city to bill those arrested for the $154 fee.

The ordinance, adopted Tuesday, is in response to the county’s July, 1991, decision to charge cities a booking fee. The fee does not include costs the city incurs by booking someone at a municipal jail or for transporting arrestees to the County Jail, which could take up to two hours at an hourly rate of $84.

Under the ordinance, recovering the fee applies only to those who are booked at County Jail and later convicted. The court could order restitution to the city as part of probation.

“I think the principal reason the council had to look at this is because of this idiotic system of the state passing its budget problems to the county, then the county to us,” Police Chief Steven Staveley said Friday. “This ordinance is the net result of that. We have to pass the costs on to the individuals being arrested.”

The county estimates that La Habra will send about 660 people to County Jail over the next fiscal year, but city officials said they now expect to send fewer than 80 individuals there during that time as a result of the new ordinance and policy changes that have allowed the Police Department to decrease its reliance on the County Jail.

In the fiscal year to date, the city has been billed $6,468 for booking fees, an expense that was not budgeted and is considered a net loss of city financial resources.

“We’ve made dramatic changes on how we handle” persons who are arrested, Staveley said, “changes that have resulted in a full use of the city jail.” He explained that more of those arrested are housed and given meals at the city jail and later transferred directly to court.

“We are also citing and releasing a great many more people with misdemeanors, such as drunk drivers, although we do keep them for a time to sober up if they are under the influence or if they have to be booked,” Staveley said.

Inmates are usually taken to County Jail if they have outstanding warrants, are security risks or are physically ill. In cases where the person is arrested on an out-of-town warrant, the city would not be responsible for paying the booking fees.