On Tuesday, Missouri voters overwhelmingly rejected Amendment 6, which would have changed the state constitution to allow court fees to pay for law enforcement salaries and retirement benefits. The proposed language read: "In order to ensure that all Missourians have access to the courts of justice as guaranteed by this Constitution, the administration of justice shall include the levying of costs and fees to support salaries and benefits for sheriffs, former sheriffs, prosecuting attorneys, former prosecuting attorneys, circuit attorneys, and former circuit attorneys."
In effect, the amendment would have reinstated a $3 court fee to fund the Missouri Sheriffs' Retirement System. In 2021, the Missouri Supreme Court struck down this fee in Fowler v. Missouri Sheriffs' Retirement System, finding it unconstitutional under Article I, Section 14, of the Missouri Constitution. This provision ensures open access to justice for all and guarantees the administration of justice without "sale, denial or delay." The Missouri Supreme Court's 1986 decision in Harrison v. Monroe County previously established that Article I, Section 14, provides protections to ensure that Missourians can access the courts without paying unreasonable charges.
Rather than identify an alternative way to fund the Sheriffs' Retirement System, Missouri lawmakers sought an easy solution by referring Amendment 6 to the November ballot. By defining the administration of justice to include the levying of court fees and costs to fund salaries and benefits for law enforcement officials, Amendment 6 would have nullified the Court's decision in Fowler.
The failure of Amendment 6 is a win for liberty. The amendment would have restored a set of perverse incentives that tie pension contributions to the volume of arrests, prosecutions, and other aspects of the criminal justice system. There is a growing body of evidence that law enforcement practices can be influenced by budgetary concerns unrelated to public safety. For example, local governments may respond to tax revenue losses by ramping up traffic citations. Diverting law enforcement resources toward revenue-generating activities may also have consequences for public safety. Local governments that rely more heavily on citation revenues, on average, solve violent and property crimes at lower rates.
Missouri is no stranger to the perverse incentives created by government reliance on court fines and fees for revenue. The U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) civil rights investigation into the Ferguson Police Department following the 2015 shooting of Michael Brown found that the city's law enforcement practices were shaped by a focus on revenue rather than public safety needs. The focus on revenue "compromised the institutional character of Ferguson's police department, contributing to a pattern of unconstitutional policing, and has also shaped its municipal court, leading to procedures that raise due process concerns and inflict unnecessary harm on members of the Ferguson community." In the wake of the DOJ's investigation, Missouri passed legislation capping court fines and fees at 20 percent of local government revenues.
Law enforcement and courts are core government functions that should be funded through legislative appropriations, not fees. Court fines and fees revenue is unstable, and much of the revenue goes uncollected. While proponents of Amendment 6 are rightly concerned about the solvency of the Sheriffs' Retirement System, relying on such a revenue source to cover pension liabilities violates some basic principles of public finance. Governments are legally obligated to fund retirement benefits they've promised to public workers, and pension liabilities are always locked in. Fine and fee revenues may hit a plateau while pension liabilities—and the employer contributions needed to fund them each year—keep rising. Long-term pension solvency demands funding discipline and proper methods.
Too often, courts are viewed as piggy banks that can be raided to cover government excesses. Now that the voters have resoundingly rejected such practices, lawmakers and local governments will need to follow kitchen-table economics, reprioritize their funding, and alter spending plans. Republican Gov. Mike Parson's administration has proposed a two-year, $5 million total appropriation to temporarily cover pension contributions, allowing more time to develop a workable funding solution.
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