Lake Havasu City will have to find a way to come up with $100,000 that isn't in the budget.

The Mohave County Board of Supervisors voted 2-to-1 Monday to adopt a new processing fee of $65 for bookings into county jail and to increase the daily housing charge for prisoners from $45.95 to $55.

Supervisor Buster Johnson voted in opposition because he wanted to first discuss it with the cities.

Johnson participated in the meeting via phone. He's in Kansas working as a bench coach with the Havasu Heat semi-pro baseball team pursuing a national championship.

Robert Howell, accounting manager for Bullhead City and Gayle Whittle, Lake Havasu City's finance director, both opposed the timing of the new charges. Howell said first notice of the new fees came to his city last week.

“We understand that costs have gone up,” Howell said. “But in February we received a letter from the county saying the lower fee would be in place. That is what we budgeted for.”

In addition to higher fees, the county approved changing the due date from 30 days after billing to 15 days.

“Fifteen days is unacceptable,” said Whittle.

Whittle also agreed time was needed to bring the city leaders up-to-speed on the impact to the city budgets by the new fees and rates, and asked for a delay of implementation. Her request was rejected.

County Manager Ron Walker explained the county originally had no plans to increase the fees, but after the Legislature passed the “Truth in Taxation” bill - which caps county property tax levies at the previous year's rate plus 2 percent - the county found itself unable to fund necessary staffing increases.

“We have three sources of revenue: property tax which is now frozen, state shared sales taxes and fees,” said Walker. “Someone has to pay and since most of these are misdemeanor bookings which mainly come from the cities, I think we have to share the burden.”

Bookings have increased about 36 percent since 2002 and direct operating costs have increased by 34 percent. The county has agreed to add 13 new full-time employees for the corrections department under Sheriff Tom Sheahan, with those hiring's going in immediately. To offset some of those costs, another 12 positions in other county departments, approved by the board of supervisors in the new budget, will not be hired until after Jan. 1.

Supervisor Pete Byers said, short of new taxes, there were few options available to the county.

“Coconino County is trying to raise their jail sales tax to a half-cent. We don't have a jail tax,” he said. “We tried to do a Sheriff's override but that was thrown back by the voters.

“I don't like it but someone has to pay.”

After the meeting, Whittle said the additional costs to Lake Havasu City - estimated at $95,000-$100,000 for the year - will have to come out of the city's contingency fund, pending approval by the City Council. She also said she was disappointed in the lack of communication between the county and the city.

“The normal process in an IGA (intergovernmental agreement) is to have discussion before going on an agenda,” Whittle said. “It didn't happen in this case.”

- You may contact the reporter at dbell@havasunews.com