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Court fee to rise by $5 Feb. 1
LISBON
Starting Feb. 1, misdemeanor offenders will pay an extra $5 court fee to cover their transportation to and from Columbiana County Municipal Court and county jail.
The commissioners have approved the plan, county Commissioner Jim Hoppel said Monday.
The fee does not affect traffic cases, according to Municipal Court Judge Mark Frost.
For decades, deputy sheriffs transported people charged with both felony and misdemeanor charges to court.
But county Sheriff Ray Stone had discovered that under Ohio law, the sheriff’s office must handle the transportation of felony prisoners but does not have to transport prisoners charged with misdemeanors.
Stone would have turned over the transportation of misdemeanor prisoners to the police agencies that had arrested them.
Stone’s idea was to try to free a deputy from court transportation to spend more time on law enforcement.
Stone said, “Everything will be handled the way it has always been handled.”
Judge Frost added, “The sheriff will continue to transport prisoners as he has always done.”
The judges will impose the extra $5 as a separate fee, in addition to fines and court costs.
Municipal court also cut arraignments from three days a week to two days, meaning one less day a deputy will be needed to transport prisoners, Judge Frost said.
Candace Page, the clerk of courts for East Liverpool Municipal Court, said that court is also assessing the $5 fee. That court began collecting the fee Jan. 1.