Fiscal Note & Local Impact Statement
127 th General Assembly of Ohio
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STATE FUND |
FY 2009 – FUTURE YEARS |
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General Revenue Fund (GRF)
and/or Other State Funds of the Attorney General |
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Revenues |
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Expenditures |
Potential, likely minimal
if that, annual cost for state's BCII to process additional fingerprint
impressions |
Note: The state
fiscal year is July 1 through June 30.
For example, FY 2009 is July 1, 2008 – June 30, 2009.
·
Attorney General's Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation
(BCII). The bill expands the list of local
enforcement agencies for which BCII is required to provide fingerprint
impression sheets. Currently, BCII is
part of an intra-state and national effort to install and operate electronic
criminal booking stations that include the taking and processing of
fingerprints. To the degree then that
the use of these booking stations in Ohio is becoming more widespread in local
criminal justice agencies, and as a result more information is being processed
electronically as opposed to manually, it seems very likely that fingerprint
impression sheets are being used less and less. From LSC fiscal staff's perspective, this suggests that any
additional annual operating expenses for BCII in order to produce and distribute
more fingerprint impression sheets are likely to be no more than minimal, if
that. In the context of state expenditures, a minimal increase means an
estimated cost of more than $100,000 per year.
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LOCAL
GOVERNMENT |
FY 2008 – FUTURE YEARS |
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Local Law Enforcement
Agencies |
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Revenues |
- 0 -- |
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Expenditures |
Potential increase, likely
to exceed minimal annually in certain local jurisdictions, to: (1) establish and maintain
fingerprinting capability, or (2) transport certain persons to other
jurisdictions for immediate fingerprinting |
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Note: For most local governments, the fiscal year is the calendar year. The school district fiscal year is July 1 through June 30.
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Local law enforcement agencies. As of this writing, from LSC fiscal staff's perspective, the
uncertainties relative to the bill's fingerprinting requirement on local law
enforcement agencies include, but are not limited to: (1) the number and identity of the agencies that currently lack
the necessary fingerprinting capability, (2) the number of persons in any of
those affected local jurisdictions that will have to be fingerprinted
immediately that would not otherwise have been fingerprinted immediately, and
(3) the way in which any of those affected local jurisdictions will perform
this required activity and at what cost.
That said, LSC fiscal staff's research to date suggests that certain
local law enforcement agencies will incur one-time and possibly ongoing annual
operating expenses in excess of minimal.
For the purposes of this fiscal analysis, a cost in excess of minimal
means an increase in expenditures estimated at more than $5,000 for any
affected local jurisdiction.
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Overview
Most notably for the
purposes of this fiscal analysis, the bill amends current law regulating the
requirement of local law enforcement agencies take fingerprints of certain
persons as follows:
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Requires
the chief administrative officer of certain law enforcement agencies to
immediately take the fingerprints of persons arrested or taken into custody for
specified offenses.
·
Requires
that, if a court learns at any time that a person's fingerprints have not been
taken, the court order the person to appear before the appropriate law
enforcement to have the person's fingerprints taken and processed.
State fiscal effects
Existing law requires that
the Office of the Attorney General's Bureau of Criminal Identification and
Investigation (BCII) furnish fingerprint impression sheets to each sheriff,
chief of police, and person in charge of every county, multicounty, municipal,
municipal-county, or multicounty-municipal jail or workhouse, community-based
correctional facility, halfway house, alternative residential facility, or
state correctional institution within the state. The bill further expands this list by including the chief
administrative officer of any other law enforcement agency in the
state.
At the time of this writing,
LSC fiscal staff has not received responses to inquiries posed to the Office of
the Attorney General regarding the annual cost, if any, of producing and
distributing additional impression sheets statewide. Absent a response, LSC fiscal staff is uncertain as to whether
BCII will incur any additional annual operating expenses, and if so, their
magnitude. That said, it should be
noted that BCII is part of an intra-state and national effort to install and
operate electronic criminal booking stations that include the taking and
processing of fingerprints. To the
degree then that the use of these booking stations in Ohio is becoming more
widespread in local criminal justice agencies, and as a result more information
is being processed electronically as opposed to manually, it seems very likely
that fingerprint impression sheets are being used less frequently. Thus, previously noted uncertainties aside,
from LSC fiscal staff's perspective given current fingerprint processing
technology, any additional annual operating expenses for BCII are likely to be
no more than minimal, if that. In the context of state expenditures, a
minimal increase means an estimated cost of more than $100,000 per year.
Local fiscal effects
Fingerprinting
The
bill requires
the chief administrative officer of law enforcement agencies other than county
sheriffs or municipal chiefs of police (which is required under current law) to
immediately take, or cause to be taken, the fingerprints of persons arrested or
taken into custody for specified offenses. Based on previous
conversations with the Buckeye State Sheriffs' Association (BSSA),[1]
it appears that this requirement may in fact generate a noticeable increase in
the expenditures for certain local law enforcement agencies.
As of October 2007, there
were 874 "local law enforcement agencies" operating in the state (not
including the 88 county sheriffs departments).[2] This total number included municipally
operated agencies, as well as other agencies authorized by current law, for
example, those operated by townships, colleges and universities, amusement
parks, hospitals, and park systems. At
the time of this writing, LSC fiscal staff is uncertain whether or not BCII is
currently providing fingerprint impression sheets to these other local law
enforcement agencies. However, a quick
survey by LSC fiscal staff of certain township police departments indicates that
these law enforcement agencies do not have any fingerprinting equipment
currently in operation, other than that used for citizen generated background
checks. Of the 874 local law
enforcement agencies that were in operation as of October 2007, 186 were agencies
other than those operated by a municipality (i.e., townships, colleges and
universities, amusement parks, hospitals, and park systems).
Based on LSC fiscal staff's
research, the bill's fingerprinting requirement could be implemented in one of
two ways. First, the arresting agency
may immediately transport the person being arrested to the nearest law
enforcement agency with the capability of taking and processing offender
fingerprints, for example, a county sheriff's or municipal chief's of police
office, or a municipal or county jail.
As a result, presumably, the arresting agency incurs additional time and
transportation costs, as officers would have to travel to and from their
jurisdictions.[3] It should also be noted that it is often the
case that a county sheriff performs most of the fingerprinting duties within
the county, as most municipal police departments have disbanded their internal
booking systems and instead rely on the services of the sheriff.
The second way in which the
bill's fingerprinting requirement could be implemented would involve a local
law enforcement agency establishing its own fingerprinting capability. A local law enforcement agency opting to do
so would need to procure fingerprinting machines and equipment (Webcheck, Automated
Fingerprint Information System (AFIS), or standard ink card stations). The one-time cost to establish a
fingerprinting station is estimated at $6,200 (the cost of an AFIS machine),
plus additional costs in other staffing and related equipment costs (i.e.,
computer work station, desk, and chairs).
As of this writing, from LSC
fiscal staff's perspective, the uncertainties relative to the bill's
fingerprinting requirement on local law enforcement agencies include, but are
not limited to: (1) the number and
identity of the agencies that currently lack the necessary fingerprinting
capability, (2) the number of persons in any of those affected local
jurisdictions that will have to be fingerprinted immediately that would not
otherwise have been fingerprinted immediately, and (3) the way in which any of
those affected local jurisdictions will perform this required activity and at
what cost. That said, LSC fiscal
staff's research to date suggests that certain local law enforcement agencies
will incur one-time and possibly ongoing annual operating expenses in excess of
minimal. For the purposes of this
fiscal analysis, a cost in excess of minimal means an increase in expenditures
estimated at more than $5,000 for any affected local jurisdiction.
LSC fiscal staff: Jamie L. Doskocil, Senior Budget Analyst
[1]
These conversations
were in relation to Am. Sub. S.B. 163 of the 127th General Assembly, which was
enacted April 29, 2008 and sent to the Governor for action.
[2] This data was compiled by
the Office of the Attorney General and provided to LSC in October 2007.
[3] Currently, these local law
enforcement agencies could issue a summons to the arrested person. In these cases, it is LSC fiscal staff's
understanding that it would be the court's or incarcerating entity's
responsibility to ensure that the person has been fingerprinted, under current
law.