I missed an important point, that is, when writing yesterday’s CJO column on Judge Howdy Manning’s order to the state to pay about $750 million in civil-penalty collections to public schools that were entitled to them under a provision of the state constitution.

My argument was that such revenue earmarking within a government’s General Fund budget is essentially meaningless, because lawmakers can just redirect other revenues that would have financed the program if the revenue earmark didn’t exist. The argument doesn’t apply to truly separate government functions, such as the Highway Fund, because there is no General Fund financing for road construction that the earmarked gas and car taxes could be displacing.

Reader Tom Davis, who is a member of the Hyde County Board of Commissioners, emailed me to say that while he agrees that General Fund dollars are fungible, I did not recognize a better justification for retaining the civil-penalty earmark in the state constitution ? it deters corruption in North Carolina law enforcement:

By directing that all fines and forfeitures go to schools the N.C. Constitution prohibits sheriff’s departments, police departments, and state agencies that enforce various laws from working on commission.

A number of years ago, the sheriffs in North Carolina could run their drug cases through the Federal law enforcement and court systems and end up with a lot of cash from fines and forfeitures resulting from those cases.  By working through the Federal systems, they were above to circumvent the state constitution.  This led to undesirable results.  For example, local officials paid less attention to less lucrative, but still bad cases.  It increased the temptation for entrapment and manufacturing cases (although I know of no instance where this happened).  I do not know whether this practice exists today, but at least in this part of the state it does not seem to occur as much as it used to.

State officials would not be immune from temptation.  Mr. [Boyce] Hudson just pulled a 30 month prison sentence for selling environmental permits.  Do you think for a second that he would not be just as willing to make spurious claims for civil penalties for made up environmental violations if it meant more money to his office?

I would put little faith in any effort to limit the ability of state or local officials to funnel the proceeds of fines and forfeitures to the source of those revenues other than by directing them to some independent use such as schools.

Sending fines and forfeitures to the schools has more to do with segregating law enforcement efforts from law enforcement rewards than it as to do with providing funding for schools.

Well said, and worth remembering.