Lack of Money Dims Chance for New Judges : Courts: The state budget crunch may mean the defeat of a bill to add eight positions to the county bench. As caseloads increase, retired jurists are being hired on a per-day basis.

Despite mounting caseloads, the outlook for a proposed measure that would create eight new Ventura County judgeships appears grim again this year, according to a legislative source.

Because of the state’s budget crunch, the chances are slim of providing the five new Municipal Court and three new Superior Court judgeships needed, according to a study done by the Judicial Council of California’s Administrative Office of the Courts.

And as judicial caseloads have increased, Ventura County’s court system has become increasingly dependent on the use of former judges who come out of retirement to handle cases for $300 a day.

“With the budget situation, it just doesn’t look good,” said an aide to state Sen. Ed Davis (R-Santa Clarita), who has proposed the judgeship bill on behalf of Ventura County every year since 1988. “There’s just no money to pay more judges.”

The Ventura County legislation is being incorporated into an omnibus crime bill encompassing the entire state, said the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity. But the outlook for the omnibus bill is also uncertain, said Michael Krell, assistant director of the state Judicial Council.

In 1991 in Ventura County, the 14 Superior Court judges processed 23,583 cases, and the 11 Municipal Court judges handled 215,804 cases, court officials said.

“They’re on overload. They’re killing themselves,” said Sheila Gonzalez, court executive officer and jury commissioner.

Vehicle code violations represent the largest proportion of cases, and a surging number are small-claims cases, officials said.

In 1990, the year before Superior Court Judge Robert J. Soares and Municipal Judge Lee E. Cooper Jr. retired after more than 20 years apiece on the bench, the Superior Court processed 19,253 cases and the Municipal Court handled 212,224 cases.

The retirees have yet to be replaced, but a spokesman for Gov. Pete Wilson has said the governor will fill the vacancies by early February.

Wilson has only recently begun filling similar vacancies elsewhere in the state, forcing court systems to hire former judges to pick up the slack.

In Ventura County, former judges such as Soares and Cooper are being called in to help out, primarily with civil cases in the Superior Court. On one recent Friday, the Superior Court hired five ex-judges for the day.

Many California judges are retiring after 20 years, when they can receive their full retirement benefits, Krell said.

“Judges around the state are feeling overworked,” he said.

A Municipal Court judge in California earns $90,680 a year, and a Superior Court judge makes $99,297.

Halfway through the fiscal year, the Ventura County Superior Court has used about 40% of the $175,000 budgeted to pay the per-day judges, while Municipal Court has spent about 60% of the $140,000 in its per-day judge budget, said Vince Ordonez, assistant executive officer for both courts.

“We are becoming dependent on them to get through our civil caseload,” said John R. Smiley, assistant presiding judge of the Municipal Court.

As a result of the workload, judges are working more efficiently, cramming more cases and paperwork into the same long hours, and they are helping each other when they can, Smiley said.

“We’re not whimpering, we’re not crying, we’re not moaning,” said Superior Court Presiding Judge Steven Z. Perren, who comes to work before 8 a.m. and stays until 6 or 7 p.m., as does Smiley.

“I’m doing what I love to do and I have more than enough work to fill my available hours.”

The real losers are the people, Perren said.

Plaintiffs filing civil cases and defendants accused of crimes are waiting longer to receive their turn at the scales of justice, and child custody cases are taking a back seat to car accident trials, Perren said.

He said the court system is set up in a way that a civil case involving a car accident can last between three and 10 days, while a child custody case is often processed in minutes or hours.

“It seems to me that a life of a child deserves more than that, and we don’t have any more to give them,” Perren said.

“The role of the court is to deal with every single dispute that exists in society,” he said. “You cannot increase the demand on the court without increasing the court’s ability to comply with that demand.”

Gonzalez said: “I don’t know how they do as well as they do.”

While the state has refused to add more judges, it has forced the sitting judges to handle cases faster.

A “fast-track” program is in place in the Municipal Court, and in July, a similar program will kick in at Superior Court, Gonzalez said. The program puts cases on a track to be handled according to their complexity, so that the simpler cases are heard first.