AAC
SEEMS TO ME...
Extreme change in the Administration of Justice caused by Act 1256 of 1995 25 years later some are still trying to figure it out
E
ver do a 180? The Arkansas Legislature did in 1995. In geometry we would call it a “straight angle” — not an acute angle; not a right angle; not an obtuse or reflex angle; but a 180-degree straight angle. The legislature made a radical change in the fundamental government service of administration of justice. Every legislative session we see change in county law. For the most part, those changes are little things that are not difficult to handle or navigate. But with the passage of Act 1256 of 1995 we experienced extreme change. Sometimes it takes something drastic to accomplish what needs to be done. No doubt they got our attention with Act 1256, which started out as Senate Bill 609 by the late Sen. Wayne Dowd of Texarkana. This piece of legislation was an extreme change in the way the judicial system was funded and how we handled filing fees and court costs at the local level. Extreme change reminds me of a young man named John. John received a parrot as a gift. Problem was, the parrot had a bad attitude and an even worse vocabulary. Every word out of the bird’s mouth was rude, obnoxious, and laced with profanity. John tried and tried to change the bird’s attitude by consistently saying only polite words, playing soft music and anything else he could think of to “clean up” the bird’s vocabulary, but to no avail. Finally, John was fed up and he yelled at the parrot. The parrot yelled back. John shook the parrot and the parrot got angrier and ruder. In desperation, John threw up his hands, grabbed the bird and put him in the freezer. For a few minutes the parrot squawked and kicked and screamed. Then suddenly, there was total quiet. Not a peep was heard for over a minute. Fearing that he’d killed the parrot, John quickly opened the door to the freezer. The parrot calmly stepped out onto John’s outstretched arm and said, “I believe I may have offended you with my rude language and actions. I am sincerely remorseful for my inappropriate transgressions, and I fully intend to do everything I can to correct my rude and unforgivable behavior.” John was stunned at the change in the bird’s attitude. As he was about to ask the parrot what had made such a dramatic change in his behavior, the bird continued. “May I ask what the chicken did?” That’s the way we in county government felt. We wondered what we had done to deserve such “confusion” thrown on us. This legislation was wholesale change, and there are very few of COUNTY LINES, SUMMER 2020
us left in county government who remember the “old way” and the “new way.” Eddie A. Jones I was one of a few asked to work with County Consultant the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) and the Department of Finance and Administration’s (DFA) Office of Administrative Services to develop an implementation plan and to go around the state trying to help city and county officials “figure it out.” The act affected county clerks, circuit clerks, district court clerks, county treasurers and city treasurers. Talk about a monumental task. Some in office at that time never got it. Some quit. That’s the truth with my hand up; they walked out never to return. It was too much change for some to handle. So how did all this get started? It’s like a lot of other things. You start hearing talk a session or two before you ever see anything in writing. The AOC were put on the hot seat a number of times to provide information to the General Assembly and could not provide adequate answers, other than “this county charges this and another that, and we don’t have a good reporting system.” It was generally established that the system of funding the state judicial system had created inequity in the level of judicial services available to the citizens of the state. It was further determined that the method of financing the state judicial system had become unduly complex so as to make the administration of the system impossible. The legislature determined there was no reliable data on the cost of the state judicial system. So they deemed it necessary to do something. Act 1256 changed the system — a lot. It did not fix everything. It did not solve all the problems. It could have accomplished more than it has if it had been implemented correctly everywhere and continued to be carried out everywhere in accordance with the law. But because it was a huge shift in procedure and administration of the courts, some did not understand and simply “flew by the seat of their pants” and “hoped for the best.” Although the 1994 base year figures were to be verified by Legislative Audit in the beginning year of the new system, we now know that some were incorrect — and that has made the numbers wrong in those jurisdictions for all these years. Some counties/cities have recalculated with the help of good See
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