The Missouri Sheriffs’ Retirement System’s $30,000 contribution to a campaign backing a court fee for sheriffs’ pensions is raising questions about the misuse of public funds. (Getty Images)
The Missouri Sheriffs’ Retirement System last month made a $30,000 investment, hoping for a big return if voters approve a ballot measure imposing a $3 fee on court cases to fund the system’s pensions.
The $30,000 contribution to the Committee to Ensure a Future for Sheriffs & Prosecutors, the committee promoting Amendment 6 on the Nov. 5 ballot, was approved at the system’s Board of Directors meeting in September, executive director Melissa Lorts said Tuesday.
The donation is drawing concern from critics of the proposed amendment — and even lawmakers in support — who question whether the pension board is using taxpayer dollars to support a political campaign.
The fee on court cases could generate about $2 million annually, according to a fiscal note for the legislation putting the measure before voters.
Prosecutors, who would also benefit from Amendment 6, have contributed $50,000 from Missouri Prosecutors Association funds. Sheriffs are the biggest contributors, with $100,000 coming from the Missouri Sheriff’s Association in addition to the donation from the retirement fund.
Amendment would use court fees to fund retirement for Missouri sheriffs, prosecutors
Along with providing the third-largest single contribution to the campaign, the retirement system website is actively promoting passage of the proposal with a box urging a “yes” vote on Amendment 6 and a link to the campaign website.
Lorts is the treasurer of the campaign committee in addition to her duties, which she said are part-time, as fund executive director.
No law is being violated by making the donation, Lorts said.
“I have a legal opinion and these are not public dollars,” Lorts said. “I’m not a political subdivision and they’re not public dollars.”
The legal opinion was not provided in writing, Lorts said. She also said she called the Missouri Ethics Commission and was assured the contribution was legal.
That assurance was not formalized in writing, either, Lorts said.
“My attorney, and I’ve also called Missouri Ethics, says nowhere am I not allowed to do that,” Lorts said.
Stacy Heislen, acting executive director of the ethics commission, declined to comment on any specific conversations.
“Our practice is to provide an overview of what the statute allows,” Heislen said.
Questions from lawmakers
Leading members of the legislature’s Joint Committee on Public Employee Retirement weren’t as certain as Lorts that the contributions were unquestionably legal.
State Rep. Barry Hovis, a Cape Girardeau Republican and chairman of the committee, said he would have to know more about the precise source of funds. He said he would ask committee staff to research the question.
“If we think that it’s a Missouri ethics complaint, obviously that report should be made to Missouri ethics to see if they did spend money that’s not viable for a campaign or election,” Hovis said. “I don’t know, I’m just not good enough on the rules to say yes or no on those.”
Hovis, a retired police officer who sponsored the legislation in the Missouri House, said he thinks the fee is reasonable. Sheriffs are vital to the functioning of the courts by serving paperwork, providing security and operating jails, he said.
Another committee member, Senate Minority Leader Doug Beck, an Affton Democrat, said he was also uncertain about the legality of the donation and wanted to know more.
“This doesn’t look good, and that’s where I’m at right now,” Beck said. “I would have to talk to some other folks that are a little bit more knowledgeable about this. I personally don’t like the way it looks.”
The fee in question was added to criminal cases in 1983 and expanded to include municipal court cases in 2013. In 2021, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that it was an unconstitutiona l bar to the courts, which are to be open to all and where “justice shall be administered without sale, denial or delay.”
Amendment 6 would overturn that decision by stating that “costs and fees to support salaries and benefits for” sheriffs, former sheriffs, prosecutors and former prosecutors is part of ensuring “that all Missourians have access to the courts of justice…”
Before the Supreme Court decision, the fiscal note for the legislation states, the fee brought about $2 million annually to the pension fund.
The fund in 2023 paid $3.8 million in benefits to 147 retired former sheriffs, one disabled former sheriff, and 52 spouses . The administrative costs of $244,454.
There are 17 retired sheriffs eligible for a pension but not receiving it and 115 currently in office.
“My board voted to contribute because it is important to the 200 members that are currently receiving a benefit that will lose their benefit if we do not receive our $3 fee back,” Lorts said.
Public money to shore up pension fund
During calendar year 2023, without the fees, the fund received $89,502 in contributions, had $38.4 million in assets and had lost $15 million in value over the previous two years. A large portion of the loss in value was due to refunding the unconstitutional fee and other costs from litigation.
To shore up its finances, lawmakers this year appropriated $5 million in general revenue to the fund, $2.5 million in the supplemental spending bill for the year ending June 30 and another $2.5 million in the current year.
Since Jan. 1, sheriffs have been contributing 5% of their salaries toward the pension fund.
By making the contribution after receiving state tax dollars, the fund could have violated rules governing the use of state appropriations, said Sharon Jones, an attorney from Jefferson City who was a member of the legal team that forced changes in the ballot language for Amendment 6.
“I’m not surprised by it even a little bit,” Jones said of the contribution.
The legal question is a murky one, she said.
“Our campaign finance laws are pretty Wild West,” she said. “Certainly, there have been attempts over the last couple of years specifically aimed at school boards and county people trying to pass levies to say you can’t campaign for it.”
A state law dating to 1988, and strengthened in 2021, prohibits political subdivisions from using public funds to support or oppose any ballot measure or candidate. No one interviewed for this story could point to a specific state law applying that prohibition to state departments or entities created by state statute.
Federal law does prohibit the conversion of public funds to campaign purposes.
“If the sheriff’s pension goes under, the state of Missouri is on the hook for those dollars,” Jones said.
Regardless of the law, she said, it is an improper diversion of money away from its official purpose.
“It’s still public money, and it’s still money that is supposed to be used on the administration of the pension fund and to make sure that there is enough to pay out what’s owed when the time comes,” Jones said.
Frank Vatterott, an attorney, former municipal judge in St. Louis County and a critic of the fee, said the $3 fee has nothing to do with keeping the courts open.
Vatterott refused to collect the fee while he was a judge. The roots of the constitutional prohibition on the fee, he said, date back to the Magna Carta, the 1215 document that put protections for individual rights into a legally binding document for the first time in England.
“The administration of justice just means the cost to keep the court going, to pay the court clerk and pay the judge and do the paperwork,” Vatterott said. “This is not the administration of justice. These are retirement funds.”
Vatterott said he has no doubt that the system’s money is public funds. And he’s not in doubt about the law.
“You can’t use public money for advocacy, period,” he said. “I would imagine they’re not that dumb.”
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