COUNTY TO SUBMIT LIST OF PRIORITIES TO AREA LAWMAKERS

JACKSON -- A list of eight legislative priorities the Cape Girardeau County Commission will ask area lawmakers to address includes everything from eliminating the interest to be assessed on use-tax repayment to expanding county governments' powers.

Lawmakers will be asked to work up support for the issues during the upcoming legislative session, Presiding Commissioner Gerald Jones said.

The issues:

-- Making juvenile officers employees of the state rather than the county.

"That's a bill that's been up there every year," Jones said. "We haven't gotten it passed yet."

The state mandates minimum salaries for the officers but doesn't help fund the salaries, he said.

"We've been ignoring that mandate," Jones said, explaining that most of the time juvenile officers are actually better paid under the county's salary schedule.

Commissioners are also pushing for the state to reimburse the counties for the cost of housing juveniles.

Reimbursement is mandated by statute, Jones said. "But they don't pay it and we get stuck with the bill."

-- Elimination of the 12 percent interest counties will be charged for use-tax revenues paid out before the local use tax was declared unconstitutional in March.

Several cities and counties around the state are suing the Missouri Department of Revenue to block the repayment of the tax revenues and the interest.

Jones said he doesn't mind repaying $800,000-plus in use-tax money, but the additional $300,000-plus in interest is going too far.

"I'll go to jail first," he said. "That's not right."

-- Requiring people represented by public defenders to pay court filing fees on civil litigation.

Jones said such a requirement would cut down on the number of frivolous lawsuits filed by inmates.

The inmates have no living expenses and their legal bills are paid by the state, he said. "So why shouldn't they clog up our court system by filing one frivolous lawsuit after the other?"

Jones said the commission will encourage the county prosecutor, sheriff and circuit judges to lobby for the same issue through their professional associations.

-- Allowing for disposal of paper files and records now required to be kept by the courts. New, computer technology means the files can be kept more efficiently, but requiring the paper files as well means Cape Girardeau County is accumulating "a case of paper a day" in legal files, Jones said.

-- Holding off on any legislative changes that would allow easier establishment of the proposed Bollinger-Cape Girardeau County lake "until all parties are in agreement," he said.

Neither county commission has been approached by the lake authority, Jones said, and changing laws before landowners, lake supporters and governing bodies are in agreement would be premature.

-- Eliminating a legislative loophole that would allow counties to back out of regional jail agreements.

Legislation passed a few years ago allows adjoining counties to band together to build new jails, but the way the law is written a county can cancel its participation at any time, "and whittle it down to just one holding the bag," Jones said.

-- Expansion of counties' powers, including greater ordinance-making authority.

"Every time we want to do something we have to go to Jefferson City and get some piece of legislation passed," Jones said. "That puts Jefferson City in the position of micro-managing, which they really don't want to do."

He cited a bill passed in the last session that allows Cape Girardeau County to retain the county coroner's post once it becomes a first-class county rather than having to hire a medical examiner.

Getting the bill approved was a lot of work, Jones said.

"Jackson or Cape or Delta or Oak Ridge -- they've all got more local authority than Cape County to set local ordinances," he said. "It's not necessarily a power grab."

-- Requiring state oversight and regulation of church-run treatment programs for troubled youths.

Jones said he supports separation of church and state, "but it's gone a little too far in some things."

Currently, such centers are not bound by any state regulations, he said, adding there are some programs in which a little guidance might be necessary, "and that's certainly one of them."