Thursday, October 1, 2026
The City of Lacey is looking to move its Violations Bureau duties to Thurston County District Court.
The Lacey City Council examined a proposal from the Lacey Finance Department during the council’s work session on Tuesday, July 22.
The department proposed to transfer all citation processing and adjudication duties from the city’s Utility Billing Division to the county court system beginning Oct. 1.
Financial Services Manager Kristy Wolf said the change would move approximately 900 to 1,000 filings annually to Thurston County District Court. The action shall then replace a system that has long been under the city’s administrative care.
“The City of Lacey currently manages the violations bureau through the utility billing division. While this structure serves the administrative purpose of the Lacey Municipal Code, the responsibilities of the Violations Bureau increasingly are misaligned with the core functions and strategic direction of the Utility Billing Division, which primarily focuses on customer service and utility account management,” Wolf explained.
If adopted, the amendment would authorize Thurston County District Court to oversee all aspects of Lacey’s violation cases, from initial filing and citation management to adjudication and enforcement of judgments.
The agreement calls for a $32,000 allocation to cover transition costs this year, including $14,000 to process existing cases still pending in the city’s system.
Wolf said most filings come from traffic infractions, with cases connected to parking rules and joint animal service enforcement.
Finance Director Troy Woo revealed the agreement calculates costs on a per-filing basis, meaning the city will pay a fixed rate for each case transferred to Thurston County District Court.
“It’s on a per file basis, and the current contract is $77 per file. … We do, we will receive our share of the violation, just it doesn’t matter who actually provides that service, so we’ll still receive our revenues as if we were processing it,” Woo clarified.
Woo added that revenue distribution will continue under existing state formulas and the city will not lose money on the change.
Regarding workforce arrangements, Council member Robin Vazquez sought assurances on job stability, as the city prepares for the transition. Wolf said the affected employees in the Utility Billing Division are represented by a bargaining unit.
City Manager Rick Walk then affirmed the city had already initiated discussions with the union.
“We have reached out and (are) apprising the union of this work and talking to them,” Walk said.
Woo added, “In addition, there’s no plans to reduce staff because of this as well.”
Deputy Mayor Malcolm Miller said the proposal would improve workflow efficiency of the Utility Billing Division by removing citation processing from the office.
“One of the challenges we have is it takes about a half FTE (full-time equivalent position) to do the violation section. But then again, when you’re dealing with a dynamic of the utility billing calendar, it makes it tough to keep up with that,” Miller said.
Wolf said the transfer would speed up case handling for the pubic and align the duties with a judicial process better equipped to handle hearings and case records.
In a parallel review, the same amendment was discussed at the Thurston County Board of County Commissioners agenda setting meeting on Tuesday, July 22.
County Manager Leonard Hernandez said a comprehensive rate study is in progress to determine cost allocations for interlocal agreements (ILAs) related to court services.
“With the ILAs that we’ve established for court services, the methodology has been a profiling fee, which doesn’t capture all the costs. …. Once the rate study is done, we’ll bring that back to the county commissioners to talk that through so that you can understand what the changes are before we have any interactions with our partner jurisdictions,” Hernandez explained.
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here