FAIRMONT — Martin County commissioners this week heard from County Attorney Terry Viesselman concerning the county’s pay-for-stay program.

The program was recently brought up in a lawsuit against the county by a former defendant, and a federal judge has issued an order stating the program is not in compliance with state law. Viesselman explained the situation to the board, which decided to end the program.

“There is this lawsuit from a former defendant who was in our jail,” Viesselman said. “He has a lawsuit in federal court and he was challenging our pay-for-stay program. The federal judge issued an order finding our program did not meet the requirements of the statute.

“The statute says that you have to waive the pay-for-stay charge for any prisoners that don’t have the ability to pay, if it causes an undue hardship on the person or their family, if the payment prospects are poor, or and other extenuating circumstances. So this is a pretty wide range that very much limits the ability to charge anybody, or collect any money that we have charged.

“The judge, in his order, said that we had 60 days to now set up a policy or a program whereby we evaluate a person’s ability to pay before charging and continue to evaluate them when they get out if we’re trying to collect money from them. The sheriff feels that the program would be overly burdensome and not worth it. We’ve been averaging $18,000 a year in collections since this program went into effect back in 2011.

“In light of the judge’s order and looking at the money that we’re collecting and the people we’re collecting from, I think if we were to incorporate this procedure to follow the statute that very little money would be collected because most of this money is coming from people who do not have the ability to pay. The vast majority of them are drug offenders and they qualify for public defenders, which means that the state has already had them fill out a questionnaire and made the determination that they don’t have the ability to pay for a lawyer.

“It was always my position back when this program was established that we can’t be charging these people, and the judge has now said that. So the sheriff feels this program needs to end and I agree with that.”

Viesselman noted that most other counties in the Fifth Judicial District have either not implemented or have ceased using similar programs because they have determined that it is not worth the time and too little was being collected.

“I think that the ones that are still doing it are probably in violation of the statue, and eventually the lawsuit might get to them now too,” he said.

Commissioners agreed and passed a motion to end the program.

No future prisoners will be charged, and the Sheriff’s Office will cease collection efforts from those who have been previously charged.