County Reduces Jurors’ Stipend by Half : Urgency Ordinance Cuts Pay to $5 After State Ends Subsidies

Los Angeles County residents who for several years have grumbled about receiving only $10 a day while on jury duty will be able to grumble twice as much starting today.

Jury pay will be only $5 a day for Municipal and Superior Court service under an urgency ordinance adopted Tuesday by the Board of Supervisors.

The pay was cut because recently passed state legislation eliminated about $4.4 million a year in state subsidies for jury pay.

Hoping to encourage more citizens to participate in jury duty, the state in 1985 adopted a system designed to assure that jurors would receive between $10 and $25 a day. The state agreed to pay up to $5 of the daily stipend if the counties would provide the rest.

At the time, Los Angeles County was paying jurors $5 a day.

But a recently enacted state law eliminated state pay for those jurors who continue to receive pay from their employers while serving on juries. The state has continued to pay $5 a day to jurors who either are not employed or whose employers refuse to pay the salary of employees while they are on jury duty.

The ordinance enacted Tuesday by the Board of Supervisors, at the urging of Jury Commissioner Frank Zolin, means that all jurors will receive $5 a day. The county will no longer collect any state subsidy on jury pay.

Zolin said he wanted to avoid an unfair “two-tier system” that would exist if some jurors were paid $10 a day and others--those reimbursed by their employers--were paid only $5.

In addition to reducing the juror fee, the board agreed to maintain the current 10-day minimum term of jury service that has been in effect since 1979.