By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Missouri voters will decide whether to reinstitute a court fee
that had been collected for nearly 40 years, but has now been ruled
unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court.
Amendment 6, on the ballot next week, would amend the Missouri
constitution to include a three-dollar court fee to fund pensions for sheriffs
and prosecutors.
State Sen. Rusty Black, a Republican from Chillicothe,
sponsored the amendment during the legislative session after what he considers
a baffling Supreme Court ruling that claims the fee is not part of an
“administration of justice.”
“The plaintiffs were arguing that sheriffs had nothing to do
with administration of justice, which to me doesn’t make sense,” Black tells
host Barry Birr on the KFEQ Hotline. “Who protects our judicial system inside
courthouses? It’s sheriffs.”
The Missouri General Assembly approved the three-dollar court
fee to fund the pensions of sheriffs and prosecutors in 1983. A lawsuit brought
in 2015 challenged the constitutionally of fee.
“The Supreme Court ended up overturning that,” Black explains.
“And when they overturned that, because in quotes, ‘sheriffs are not part of
the administration of justice as found in our constitution,’ that made that fee
illegal.”
The Missouri Supreme Court made its decision in 2021, throwing
the financial system for undergirding the pension plans into uncertainty.
“If we don’t find another system, or if this doesn’t pass,
then the retirement system, I think within eight of nine years will be defunct,”
Black says.
Black says, at present, five percent of a sheriff’s salary
goes into the retirement system. The court fee would fund the remainder.
You can follow Brent on X @GBrentKFEQ and St. Joseph Post @StJosephPost.
