PRICHARD, Ala. — Add the municipal court to Prichard’s list of money problems. New figures filed with the state show the court has cost the city more to operate than it has collected in revenue for each of the last four fiscal years — a gap of more than $265,000 over that stretch.
The numbers came under scrutiny during a recent Public Works and Public Safety committee meeting as city leaders, already confronting a broader budget crunch, search for ways to stretch every dollar.
The Numbers
According to annual reports filed with the state, Prichard Municipal Court collected just over $104,000 in revenue during fiscal year 2025 while running on an operating budget of more than $165,000 — a shortfall of about $61,000 in a single year.
Zoom out, and the picture is similar. Over the past four fiscal years, the court collected about $438,000 while reporting more than $703,000 in operating expenses, leaving a cumulative gap of more than $265,000.
Why Collection Is Lagging
Mayor Carletta Davis blames part of the problem on generous payment timelines handed out by the court.
“You know why? Because our judge gives people so much time to pay. They give them a whole year to pay $300. You know, it’s crazy,” Davis said.
She also pointed to a years-deep backlog of unpaid tickets and municipal fees that the city has lacked an effective way to collect. Her solution: route old debts to the Municipal Intercept Service, a state-level program that can intercept money owed to debtors — such as state tax refunds — to satisfy court debts.
“In other words, if you go into the courts office, they have years and years worth of tickets and municipal fees they should be collecting. I’m just now sending them to MIS, we should have been doing that, because the state will intercept that money,” Davis said.
The mayor argued that consequences matter, too. “That could help out a great deal because if people would know they could go to jail for not paying the fees, that would help,” she said.
Last in the Region Per Case
The collection figures stand out when compared with other municipal courts in the region. Among the 22 courts in Mobile, Baldwin, Clarke, Washington, Escambia, Monroe and Conecuh counties that reported at least 1,000 cases in fiscal year 2025, Prichard ranked last in revenue collected per case.
Prichard collected about $78 per case — below Semmes at roughly $82 and Bayou La Batre at about $87. Mobile collected about $112 per case, while several Baldwin County courts pulled in several hundred dollars per case.
Amnesty Day on the Table
The state reports do not show how much Prichard currently holds in outstanding fines or how many warrants are tied to unpaid cases. But during the committee meeting, one council member floated an amnesty day — a window in which people with unpaid court fines could come forward, settle what they owe and potentially have warrants recalled.
The city has not announced whether it will move forward with that idea. For now, the court’s finances join a growing list of fiscal pressure points in Prichard, where leaders are also wrestling with how to fund police protection and other public-safety services amid a standoff with the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office.