LAPLACE — The reintroduction of increased traffic enforcement in St. John the Baptist Parish doesn’t appear any closer with the start of 2017 as it was when the program was suspended last summer.

Contention between law enforcement and some members within the court system began when Sheriff Mike Tregre suspended the Local Agency Compensated Enforcement (or LACE) program, in which the District Attorney’s office funds overtime traffic enforcement patrol details that generate funds for the criminal justice system through fees and fines.

District Attorney Bridget Dinvaut said she hopes to have a response to Tregre’s proposal to reinstate the program this month but was cautious recently when talking about a potential middle ground for the at-odds agencies.

In December Tregre proposed reinstating the program as long as various “conditions and safety precautions” are met. Included in the proposal is a district attorney’s office-funded dispatcher that would handle all LACE-related calls.

Patrols would cap at two deputies per shift, be relegated to daylight hours and would generally concentrate on Airline Highway, U.S. 51, Belle Terre Boulevard and Interstate 10, as well as River Roads on both banks if necessary.

“It would be two separate units operating in a specific area,” Tregre said. “If they had to respond to reach each other, they would be within a minute or two.

“I wanted to see if (the D.A.’s office) would pay for a dispatcher to handle the calls, because there is such a large number of license plates and license numbers ran. If my regular dispatchers get a house fire or a major event call, then I can’t have them dealing with LACE at the same time. The State Police have a dispatcher they pay separately for that.”

The sheriff stressed he is ready to see the program go back into action.

Dinvaut said the timing of the proposal in early December has hampered her response because she was in the thick of finalizing her office’s 2017 budget, which runs the length of the calendar year.

With a budget in place, Dinvaut said she is taking a cautious approach to resuming the LACE program, knowing the entities it funds could lose that revenue if the program ended abruptly, as was the case when the sheriff suspended efforts in the summer of 2016.

Richard Stricks, who leads the Public Defenders Office, said the lack of LACE revenue costs his department tens of thousands of dollars in operating revenue each month, negatively impacting the court system.

The Public Defenders Office includes court-appointed lawyers who work juvenile court, misdemeanor cases and felony cases where residents seek legal representation but cannot afford an attorney.

Stricks said the monthly check he received Friday was the lowest amount since 2010, when his office’s share of court costs was 20 percent less per case.

“Since July 2016, the Sheriff’s sudden cessation of participation in the traffic enforcement LACE program, paid for by the District Attorney, has caused great harm to criminal justice agencies upon which the public relies,” he said. “A second lawyer has resigned citing lack of funding for public defenders. The latest to resign provided representational services in Drug Court, IV-D and West Bank misdemeanor cases.”

LACE

Dinvaut previously said she was made aware of a criminal court fund deficit of more than $280,000 shortly after taking office nearly two years ago. To combat the issue she said the District Attorney’s office signed LACE agreements with Louisiana State Police and the Sheriff’s Office to fund extra details where officers focus on traffic enforcement, primarily on Interstate 10 and Interstate 55.

A portion of the fees and fines paid by the resulting traffic offenders helps fund numerous aspects of the criminal court system.

The traffic enforcement shifts are operated in addition to deputies’ regular shifts and are funded through the D.A.’s office.

St. John Clerk of Court Eliana DeFrancesch previously said her office logged an average of more than 1,900 monthly traffic citations from March through June 2016 from the Sheriff’s Office and the State Police. The citations dropped to under 1,600 in July, when Tregre suspended the program.

Citations fell to 1,017 in August when only the State Police participated in LACE.

Burden

Tregre has maintained he does not know how the system came about to depend so greatly on traffic tickets for projected revenue, but added it puts a “tremendous burden” on the Sheriff’s Office, which he said has done its part to help other government entities.

He pointed to deputies’ heavy workload, unsafe conditions and spotty communication near Ruddock as factors in LACE’s temporary suspension.

Dinvaut said she is eager to work in a spirit of cooperation to reinstate the program, which she said benefits all residents because of the increased law enforcement presence.

She said she remains “keenly aware” of the decreased revenue generated by its suspension, especially negative impacts on the Public Defenders Office and greater court system.