St. Charles' DUI law may end up costing city taxpayers

One of St. Charles' newest laws, designed to save money, may instead generate a new bill for the city and its taxpayers.

The city created its own local DUI ordinance the beginning of this year. Since then, it's been slightly modified to duplicate the existing state DUI law. The local law only applies to first-time DUI offenders. The city made the change to retain more of the DUI fines, have a consistent prosecution team and a single court date to reduce overtime for police officers who must appear in court. All that meant savings and new revenue for the city. However, the back end of the prosecution will end up costing the city if Kane County State's Attorney John Barsanti has anything to say about it.

One of the repercussions of a local DUI ordinance is a gray area about what happens to the person facing the charge if he or she can't post the bond set by a judge. There are no other city ordinance violations anywhere in the county that can result in a person going to jail. However, since St. Charles' law matches the state law, in theory, the person would go to jail if bond can't be they posted.

For Kane County, that means adding people to a jail population officials are trying to keep as low as possible. The jail, although only a couple of years old, has found itself without enough beds for all its would-be inmates at various times. That means paying even more money to host inmates at other facilities outside the county. At a minimum, the county gets stuck with the cost of keeping the DUI defendant in the county jail. Barsanti said Friday that's a cost the county doesn't want.

"Everyone knows the problem we've had with the jail population," Barsanti said. "We should charge (the city) for the days they use our county jail. If they don't want to pay, then they have to find someplace else to keep these people."

Barsanti said local DUI ordinances are common in DuPage County. He expects more Kane County municipalities will write local DUI laws as soon as they figure out there is money to be made. That would only exacerbate the jail population problem, Barsanti said.

St. Charles Deputy Police Chief Dave Kintz said the ability to hold someone in the Kane County jail if he can't post bond for a DUI is still something he is researching. Kintz said all the case law shows the local ordinance is valid but there is no clarity on actually putting someone in jail. Kintz said the city will research how DuPage County addresses the situation. He said he was unaware of Barsanti's plan to charge the city for each DUI inmate the county gets from St. Charles.