The end of IL cash bail could take a bite out of St. Clair County’s budget — and yours

The end of Illinois’ cash bail system on Jan. 1 means St. Clair County will lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual revenue, may need to hire more employees to implement the new system, and could see savings at the county jail.

St. Clair County board members are gearing up for discussions about just how much bail reform might affect spending as they try to plan for next year’s budget, which is typically approved in December.

County department heads are preparing their budget requests. Meanwhile, the law abolishing cash bail is the subject of a growing number of lawsuits from prosecutors across the state seeking to alter or repeal it. And legislators have suggested they will make changes to it as they prepare to return to Springfield for November’s veto session.

“Certainly we know there will be an impact,” said County Administrator and Budget Officer Debra Moore. “The level of impact, we don’t know at this time.”

Here’s a look at some of the ways the law will affect the county budget as it is written today:

About bail reform in Illinois

Bail reform is part of state legislation known as the Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today Act, or SAFE-T Act.

It changes the rules for detaining people charged with a crime in a county jail before their trials. Under the current system in Illinois, people can be released from jail if they can pay an amount of money set by a judge known as a bail bond.

The intent of the SAFE-T Act is to detain people accused of crimes only if they are considered a danger to others or a flight risk. Opponents of the law say they fear the new system could make communities less safe. Supporters say that, with a cash bail system, people can be unnecessarily jailed because they can’t afford to pay bond.

Under the SAFE-T Act, the cash bail system will be replaced with “pretrial detention hearings” before a judge where prosecutors will present evidence for why they allege a person charged with a crime should be detained in a county jail. These hearings are required to be in person. If the person doesn’t hire a private attorney, the public defender will automatically be appointed to the case and be required to meet with the person before the hearing.

If the person is released from custody to await trial from home and he or she violates a condition of release by getting charged with a new crime or failing to show up for court, the SAFE-T Act will require a St. Clair County sheriff’s deputy to serve a summons to appear for another hearing with at least 48 hours notice. “Serve” typically means delivering the document in person.

‘We’re going to have to request more people to get this done’

Some county department heads say they would need to hire more employees to be able to implement the changes the SAFE-T Act calls for.

St. Clair County Sheriff Rick Watson said he will need 8-10 more employees to keep up with the anticipated workload of transporting people from the jail to the courthouse for pretrial detention hearings and serving summonses in the community. He said the department would likely split the new hires between those two jobs, with the corrections and patrol staff each getting four or five new officers.

“Even when we’re at full staff here, we’re just maintaining, but with all the rest of the mandates, we’re going to have to request more people to get this done,” Watson said.

Elsewhere in the county, Public Defender Cathy MacElroy said she needs at least one additional lawyer, but probably more, to defend people accused of crimes in new, pretrial detention hearings as well as trials.

MacElroy expects the number of trials to increase when cash bail ends because she said people often pleaded guilty to end their criminal case and get out of jail custody under that system. Next year, those cases would continue to trial instead.

“We absolutely love these changes — They’re extremely beneficial to the system. They bring integrity to the system — but we need funding for them,” MacElroy said. “We could do all of these things without a law mandating them if we were properly funded.” She pointed to the emphasis the law places on defense attorneys meeting their clients in person and early as one example of a practice public defenders would like to do regardless because it helps their cases.

Both the public defender’s office and sheriff’s department are funded by the county board. The board’s largest source of revenue is property taxes. It also generates revenue from fines and fees, a sales tax and more sources.

The law could have financial implications for other departments within the St. Clair County court system as well.

State’s Attorney Jim Gomric didn’t respond to a request for comment about whether he anticipates his office will need to hire more attorneys. Interim Circuit Clerk Marie Zaiz said she had no comment; a new circuit clerk will be elected in the Nov. 8 election.

What staffing shortages mean to the county budget

Chief Circuit Court Judge Andrew Gleeson, who oversees the public defender’s office, reiterated that it needs more lawyers, saying they’re already “maxed out.” MacElroy said her full-time attorneys’ yearly caseload of about 300 felony cases each is double the amount the American Bar Association recommends for lawyers.

MacElroy said her position is part-time, and she has six full-time lawyers, with one vacancy. The office also has a couple part-time lawyers who handle felony matters, as well as some private attorneys who volunteer their time when requested, according to MacElroy. The starting salary for lawyers in the public defender’s office is $48,500.

Without additional staff, the public defender’s office could eventually reach a point where they can’t take on more cases for people who can’t afford other representation, according to MacElroy. She said judges would then have to appoint private lawyers who can charge the county hourly for their time, up to $5,000 a case.

“Funding the public defender’s office is cheaper than the alternative,” MacElroy said.

In the sheriff’s department, there are 70 corrections officers, with three vacancies, and 61 deputies, with seven vacancies, according to Watson. He said the department actually has more openings to fill because 14 people retired this year, but it can’t start hiring for some of those positions until it pays out retirees’ unused vacation and sick time.

Corrections officers start at a salary of $48,426, which increases to $60,800 after a one-year probationary period. Deputies start at a salary of $55,265, which increases to $69,432 after a year. But Watson said he typically hires deputies with experience, who start working at $69,432 without the probationary salary.

Watson said staffing shortages in the sheriff’s department can mean officers work overtime, at a cost to the county. “The work doesn’t go away, but the numbers of people do,” he said.

Where taxpayers could save money in bail reform

The SAFE-T Act could offer a savings to taxpayers if it results in fewer people in custody at the St. Clair County Jail.

The Illinois Sentencing Policy Advisory Council estimated it costs $40,567 a year on average to hold a person in a county jail based on a sample of sheriffs’ jail expenditures.

In late September, the St. Clair County Jail was holding 456 people, and more than 50 of them had been in custody for a year or longer.

Sgt. James Hendricks, of the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department, said the jail population includes people in custody pending charges, people accused of a crime who are awaiting trial, as well as federal prisoners who are serving their sentences in St. Clair County.

Cash bail represents hundreds of thousands in revenue

When the cash bail system ends, counties will no longer be able to collect a bond processing fee, which represents hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to St. Clair County.

Circuit court clerks can retain 10% of bond payment amounts after all other court-ordered obligations are met as part of the processing fee. And it’s considered general revenue that can be spent on county expenditures other than the circuit clerks’ office, according to the Illinois Supreme Court Pretrial Implementation Task Force.

The task force analyzed the financial impact of ending cash bail in a report published in September 2021.

It found that between 2016 and 2020, St. Clair County collected as much as $318,321 in a single year from bond processing fees. The task force recommends that counties look at what government functions were financially supported by bond processing fees and consider other sources of revenue that could be used instead.

Counties also used to be able to apply money from bonds toward county-specific fees at the end of a criminal case. But the end of cash bail doesn’t change a court’s ability to impose fees on people convicted of crimes in Illinois, according to the task force.

The SAFE-T Act’s critics have expressed concern that the law will require counties to raise property taxes.

In response, the Illinois Coalition to End Money Bond advocacy group released a statement contending revenue from a cash bail system “is not a financially responsible, sustainable or ethical way to fund government operations.”

“Our justice system should focus on public safety needs and not on generating revenue,” the coalition stated.

Moore, the St. Clair County administrator and budget officer, said officials are trying to predict the SAFE-T Act’s impact on revenue now and will soon have conversations with department heads about “what’s appropriate and, most importantly, what’s affordable.”