Municipal Judges Decide to Accept State Funding

After several months of negotiations with county administrators, the county’s municipal judges voted Tuesday to join a new state program for financing court operations.

The County Board of Supervisors is expected to give final approval for county participation in the program, set up under the state’s Trial Court Funding Act, at its meeting today. The county’s Superior Court judges voted last month to join the program.

Under the program, the county is to receive about $9 million in the next 6 months that it needs to avert a budget crisis. The courts will get an additional $3.5 million, including money for five new Superior Court judgeships.

The county’s troubled budget got another needed boost Monday when the county retirement board agreed to a bailout that will save the county about $8 million in the current fiscal year.

County officials said it is now unlikely that layoffs or program cutbacks will be necessary. But a hiring freeze the supervisors adopted last month will be maintained.

Under the Trial Court Funding Act, which was intended to bail out financially strapped counties statewide, the state will assume much of the cost of operating the courts. But before the county could join the program, an agreement for disbursing the state funds had to be reached with all the county’s judges.

The Superior Court will get five new judges and clerical staff to serve them. The Municipal Court will get more than 60 new clerical positions. The judges will also be granted the same retirement benefits given to Superior Court judges.

In addition, the marshal’s office was given $406,000 for new positions; the court clerk’s office received $275,000.