Courting disaster: Courts feel budget pinch

Last year Gov. Pawlenty appointed two additional judges in Anoka County based on the county's burgeoning caseload. One of those judges, Tom Fitzpatrick, took the oath Jan. 1.

"The idea was that this courthouse would be fully equipped, 17 judges and 17 courtrooms simultaneously, and right now we don't have the budget to do that because we don't have the staff to support all 17 judges at once," said Fitzpatrick.

Judges are the public faces in courtrooms, but they don't work alone. They depend on administrative clerks to file and update court documents, fill out forms, take notes in court, and swear in witnesses. Right now, Anoka needs seven more clerks but can't hire them because there isn't enough money in the budget.

Judge John Hoffman who's been an Anoka judge for 11 years said that means the current clerks can't keep up.

"It is pretty consistent now that when I get my files up the day before for review, that current pleadings are not in my files," said Hoffman. "There's been more than one occasion in the last year where I get attorneys in front of me, litigants in front of me and they're talking about documents and I don't have them."

In addition to administrative clerks, judges depend on law clerks. These are typically new attorneys who perform much of the legal research. They also schedule calendars and are the court's contacts with attorneys and other parties in cases. Under judicial ethics rules, judges aren't supposed to talk with one side in a case without the other side present.

Anoka can only afford to pay 13 law clerks for 17 judges so four judges at a time work for six months without one. One of those is Ellen Maas who's been an Anoka County judge for 13 years.

"I just got back from an extended vacation and my voice mail was filled with messages from attorneys, She said. "Now ethically, I can't return those calls. I'm scrambling now because…I have a four week trial coming up in May involving four fatalities. I have no staff for that."

The budget problem facing the 10th district, which includes Anoka is not unique. The Minnesota court system as a whole has held open 207 positions or 7 percent of its staff, encouraged employees to take leaves without pay, closed public counters a half day a week in three districts and will close a satellite court in Washington County July 1.

And for the first time, districts are laying off personnel. The third district has given layoff notices to five long-term employees who will lose their jobs at the end of April. The tenth district has layoff plans. Now the governor is proposing to cut funding for the courts by 4 percent or $13 million which would cost another 220 positions.

Minnesota Chief Justice Russell Anderson said such cuts would be "devastating." He said the courts can't just cut caseloads. They have to handle the cases that come through the doors, particularly criminal cases. The Constitution mandates that the courts also offer services such as interpreters; psychological testing; and jury costs--costs that have all been rising in the last year.

The state House and Senate have proposed smaller cuts in the court budget than Pawlenty, but Anderson said it's still too much.

"We have appreciated the Legislature's attempt to lessen these cuts, but even with the Legislature's proposal we're estimating that we would have as many as another 100 positions that would be lost," he said.

Before 2005, courts negotiated their budgets with individual county boards. Now decision-makers in St. Paul negotiate for the court system statewide. Those decision-makers include the State Court Administrator's office and the Judicial Council, a 25-member committee which includes judges and administrators, chaired by the Supreme Court Chief Justice.

The goal in moving to a state-funded system was to save money and provide an equal level of justice throughout the state.

But several Minnesota judges, including Anoka County Judge John Hoffman, say new negotiators haven't asked for enough.

"I think most legislators would tell us that they're shocked that we have the financial problems that we have," Hoffman said. "I think when the people that negotiate our budgets build into the process 2 percent raises and then negotiate with many of the collective bargaining agents, 3.5 percent raises and then say, 'you have a structural deficit. Fix it.' We were never in control of those decisions."

Chief Justice Russell Anderson said the executive branch has much larger unions and the court system has to follow their lead.

"We certainly have to follow their lead in the negotiations," he said. "And I would say to our critics, 'where have you been? Where have you been when the rest of us have been over there day and night?' This just doesn't happen by staying home and complaining about St. Paul."

Other judges have told MPR privately they've tried to have a bigger say in budgeting. They say they've been told the court speaks with only one voice and that voice comes from St. Paul.

The judges said they wanted to speak on the record but were afraid that if they did, their districts might get penalized in future funding decisions.

House and Senate conference committee negotiations are underway to resolve the differences between the two finance bills and find a budget balancing solution that Governor Pawlenty is willing to sign. But the courts portion of the budget is only a small part of the overall negotiations over the state's $935 million projected deficit.

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