At the Wednesday, July 15, County Commissioners Meeting, the Commissioners will vote to approve an agreement with the City of Lancaster to implement a new “Regional Booking Center and Central Duty Court” in the Lancaster City Public Safety Building (Police Station). According to County Solicitor Don LeFever, the partnership “comes about as a result of the County Court System’s desire to create a cooperation with the City and the County.”
The center will be used by State, City, and County police for the purpose of processing information about newly arrested defendants. At a consolidated booking center, police officers can simply deliver arrested individuals for the fingerprinting, mug shots, arraignment, and the posting of bail. In other circumstances, the officer would have to be present for the entirety of this process, but the Central Booking Station, in Commissioner Scott Marin’s words, will allow “our fellow municipalities throughout the commonwealth, and also our State Police, to get those police officers back onto the street that much quicker.”
The partnership between the City and County will require the City to provide and maintain the facility, while the County will pay expenses associated with court costs. The County will also pay “$25,000 per year to the City to help defray the City’s costs and expenses of maintaining and operating the Regional Center and Central Duty Court.”
Martin elaborated on how the $25,000 expense will be largely offset: “A $25,000 cost…is that something that we would be recouping from the $300 booking/arraignment fee that’s assessed to the offenders. A portion of that goes to fund Live Scan [fingerprint scanners]; another portion will come back to fund our commitment area of $25,000 to the City.”
At the Tuesday Work Session, the Commissioners expressed favor toward the motion, with Commissioner Martin praising it as “a great use of our resources,” and Commissioner Lehman commending the project for its County-City collaboration.
