The county’s costs may be going up for delivering divorce papers, civil summons and other court documents, but a suggestion to start charging for such services won’t be going anywhere.

It’s simply against the law.

This week, Douglas County commissioners agreed to finance the purchase of a new patrol car to be dedicated for sheriff’s officials who deliver process papers from Douglas County District Court and other jurisdictions.

The Sheriff’s Office delivered 21,839 such documents last year, an average of 1,820 a month.

Buying a $20,000 car to handle the growing load may make sense, Commissioner Charles Jones said, but he wanted to know whether the county could charge fees for delivering papers to all parts of the county.

“If it costs 10 bucks to serve a paper, that’s $18,000 a month,” Jones said.

Jere McElhaney, commission chairman, had an idea: “If it costs $10, we could charge them $25.”

Not so fast, Sheriff Rick Trapp said Tuesday. State law prohibits counties from charging fees to deliver process papers from a district court.

Trapp knows this because he checked into the prospects for such fees shortly after his election in November 2000.

“It’d be nice,” Trapp said. “Even if you could just charge 5 bucks, it would be tremendous.”

The county is allowed to charge out-of-state courts for delivering their papers. The current fee is set at $25 per paper, plus mileage, which was enough to generate $3,500 in revenue last year.

Next year’s Sheriff’s Office budget is $6.7 million.