Point Boro Court Costs to Rise with Shared Services Amendment

Court costs are rising in Point Pleasant Borough, but officials said its shared service agreement with neighbor Point Pleasant Beach still represents a savings compared to the past practice of each town running its own municipal court.

Following concerns from Point Beach that police overtime was driving up the cost of doing court business, Point Borough responded by agreeing to supply its own officers and cover a higher percentage of court staff salaries.

Council unanimously approved a resolution on Tuesday night to cover 25 percent of administrative costs generated by the court, which includes the salaries, pensions, and health care of court employees. That total is up from the 15 percent Point Borough has paid since the two towns entered into a shared services agreement in June, 2010. 

Since then, the municipal court sessions for both towns has been held at Borough Hall on Bridge Avenue in Point Borough and each town has been responsible for paying for its own police officers to man the respective sessions for each town.

Point Borough also agreed to hire special officers at no more than $13 an hour to staff the court during Point Beach sessions, at the expense of Point Beach.

Point Beach paid $20,000 in police overtime in 2011 alone, according to a previous report. Regular, full-time officers were used to provide security in court as Point Beach special officers did not have jurisdiction outside of the town. 

The new amendments were negotiated and agreed to by both towns and is retroactive to July 1, 2012.

Point Borough Administrator David Maffei said despite the 10 percent increase in salary costs, the shared services agreement still represents a savings when compared to the alternative of the borough running its own court and not sharing the expense with its neighboring town.

The new agreement with Point Beach, which runs through June, 2015, was reached after evaluating how much of the court's case load is split between Point Borough and Point Beach.

The renegotiation was spurred on by Point Beach who felt Point Borough should reimburse them more for its use of the court.   

Maffei was not able to provide an estimate of how much the borough's total contribution to the court would be. The cost is expected to rise, however, despite Point Beach's payments to borough special officers offsetting some of the cost.

The agreement still needs a final sign-off from Point Beach and approval from Superior Court Assignment Judge Vincent Grasso, sitting in Toms River.