Small town JP dueling with county government

Tuesday, Feb. 10, 1998 | 10:39 a.m.

The JP for the tiny community of Schurz says he has had less than five cases compared with the hundreds he handled annually in the past. Varain, whose salary is $15,000 a year, adds, "They're paying me to do nothing."

District Attorney Brian Kunzi agrees - but says the policy has nothing to do with traffic fine money going to the state or to Mineral County.

Kunzi says the Schurz justice court was costing the county $65,000 annually and commissioners felt the business could be handled just as easily in the county seat of Hawthorne, about 35 miles away.

"Randy has always had a beef with Mineral County," Kunzi said. "He can't stand Mineral County."

But Varain says his case is a vivid example of an ongoing dispute between the state and local governments over the collection and retention of money from traffic fines.

Mineral County commissioners realigned the boundaries of the Schurz township, which Varain says put him on the sidelines. In the realignment, part of U.S. 95 was taken out of Schurz and placed in Hawthorne.

Instead of ticketing errant motorists into Varain's court, drivers now are told to pay fines in Hawthorne. Varain says the violation is converted from a state infraction to a violation of a county ordinance, meaning local government keeps the money.

But Kunzi says in most cases the ticketed drivers, many of them traveling between Las Vegas and Reno, don't show up in court and forfeit bail - and the law is clear that bail forfeitures go to the county treasury.

Varain also says county officials were unhappy that he imposed a fine of $3 a mile for each mile the driver was traveling over the speed limit. Other places charge $10 a mile.

"They have gone crazy with greed," he said.

In the past, Varain said his court generated between $150,000 and $200,000 which was required to go to the state. It's put in a school trust fund and the interest is used to pay for support of state education.

A legislative study panel chaired by Assemblyman Bernie Anderson, D-Sparks, is studying Nevada's system of court fines. He says, "We have to come to some resolution so everybody does the same thing out there."

State government, according to a prior legislative audit, could be losing $3 million a year to the counties.