Countywide : Deadline Arrives on Pay of Court Aides

The County Board of Supervisors will meet this morning to deal with a salary dispute which could cost the county $13 million in state funds if not resolved today.

A tentative compromise in the dispute was reached Tuesday by the board chairman and vice chairman and Presiding Municipal Court Judge Robert E. Thomas. At issue are the salaries of 10 top Municipal Court administrators.

County Administrative Officer Larry Parrish, warning the board Tuesday that negotiations had deadlocked, said, “As we sit here this morning there’s really nothing left to negotiate. . . . Time is of the essence.”

At stake is a $13-million bailout of the county’s financially strapped court system. Earlier this year the board, along with the county’s Municipal and Superior Court judges, agreed to join a new state program under which the state will assume much of the cost of operating the county courts.

Under the Trial Court Funding Act, Orange County is eligible for about $13 million from the state for the coming year, county administrators said. But the county and the courts have until Nov. 15--today--to agree on how the money will be spent.

Earlier Tuesday the only remaining stumbling block was the salary increases for the chief clerk and deputy clerk of each of five Municipal courts. At the hearing, the county’s personnel director, Russell C. Patton, said the county had offered a salary increase of about 9% but that court officials were insisting on about 14.3%.

Thomas argued that court employees have not received steady pay increases over the years as county employees have. He also disputed Patton’s figures.

Both sides declined to disclose specifics of the tentative salary agreement.

“That will be made public tomorrow,” Vice Chairman Don R. Roth said Tuesday. He added, however, “I understand the judges are all dancing around in the aisles.”