Most people interacting with the court system in Louisville will soon have to pay more in fees.
Metro Council members approved the increase at a meeting Thursday night. People convicted of a traffic offense will have to pay $10 more in court costs, while fees in criminal cases will go up $20-25, depending on the seriousness of the case.
The change won’t just impact people convicted of a crime. Filing a lawsuit will also get more expensive, as will having the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office serve subpoenas or civil summons.
The fee increases were requested by Jefferson Circuit Court Clerk David Nicholson. In June, Nicholson sent an email to Metro Council President Brent Ackerson, outlining the $40 million in outstanding maintenance projects at the Hall of Justice, the Judicial Center and the Old Jail Building.
“As we continue to see these infrastructure expenses grow, it is time to pivot our discussions toward planning for the future,” Nicholson wrote.
The list of maintenance needs include the escalators at the Hall of Justice, which are often shut down, modernizing elevators used by judges and HVAC and lighting repairs at all three buildings — a project estimated to cost more $18 million.
The increased court costs and fees could raise as much as $1.8 million annually, according to Nicholson’s office.
Ackerson, a District 26 Democrat who sponsored the ordinance outlining the fee changes, pushed his colleagues to support the fee increases, if for no other reason than practicality.
“This boils down to the very simple question of, ‘Do we want tools to address this issue?’ and, if not, is someone else offering something, because I’m not hearing anything,” Ackerson said during a Budget Committee meeting last week. “We just finished passing a [city] budget and there’s a lot of things we would have liked to continue spending money on but we didn’t have the funds for it.”
Ackerson noted that more than 100 counties in Kentucky raised their fees after the General Assembly and the state Supreme Court authorized it in 2001.
The three court buildings downtown are the responsibility of Louisville Metro Government, who owns them. The court system is a tenant.
Some council members, like District 8 Democrat Ben-Reno Weber, expressed concerns with the increased rates ahead of the vote. During the council’s Budget Committee meeting last week, Reno-Weber said he was worried there would be unintended consequences.
“Having just spent all day at the Goodwill Opportunity Center and listening to people talk about how they are recently out of jail, they’re trying to be in nursing school but they’re dropping out because they don’t have $60 for a textbook, my concern is that these fees in particular will fall disproportionately on folks … where that will be a burden,” he said.
Reno-Weber said he was concerned that tacking on more fees could contribute to “trapping people in this cycle of engaging with the court system.” Reno-Weber pushed to have the ordinance sent back to committee to give him time to develop an alternative proposal, but didn't gain enough support from his colleagues.
Proponents of the ordinance said the increases — ranging from $10 to $25 — were not likely to make a big difference to court users.
The fee increases in Jefferson County Circuit Court include:
- $25 in additional filing fees for civil cases
- $25 added to court costs for criminal cases
- $25 in additional filing fees for appealing a civil case to the Court of Appeals
And in district court:
- $10 in additional court costs for traffic cases
- $10 added to the filing fee for probate cases
- $20 in additional court costs for misdemeanor criminal cases
- $10 added to all filing fees in small claims court
- $10 in additional filing costs for all civil cases
Metro Council approved the ordinance raising fees and court costs Thursday in an 18-7 vote, with District 5 Democrat Donna Purvis voting present.
