Board restores court funding in final budget

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Similar to last year, the Milwaukee County Board overrode County Executive Scott Walker’s vetoes to the circuit court system budget. Walker once again pointed to a lack of state aid as a major reason for his proposed reductions.

At its Nov. 14 meeting, the County Board voted 14-5 to restore $438,907 in funding and staff for the courts, including two full-time Deputy Court Clerk Judicial Assistants and two clerical assistant positions, which Walker had vetoed. In total, 12 court-related positions were retained at a cost of about $850,000.

“By no means did any of my vetoes reflect any problems with the courts,” said Walker. “For us the main gripe is that the state doesn’t provide adequate funding.”

Chief Judge Kitty K. Brennan was grateful for the restorations, though she still maintained the system will have financial challenges in 2008.

“I am generally appreciative that the Board lived up to its responsibility to fully fund the court system,” said Brennan. “These restorations certainly give us a better chance to come in at budget next year, but we’re not out of the woods yet.”

Walker had initially proposed eliminating 18 circuit court positions, including 9 law clerks, but restrained his veto pen after the Board restored 15 positions with a 17-2 vote at its Nov. 5 meeting.

In his veto memo, Walker retained the law clerk positions, as well as two clerical assistants in the Register of Probate Division, because of Brennan’s concern about the impact their loss would have on efficiency. However, he sought to abolish the other four support positions, indicating their loss would not impact court operations.

“Clearly, the legal intern positions were something which the chief judge viewed as extremely important, pre-dating my administration,” said Walker. “So we found a compromise between courts and county to provide a way that didn’t involve more costly alternatives.”

Brennan had openly said she would have appointed state-mandated bailiffs in lieu of the law clerks at almost double the cost to the county.

The Board, by a 13-6 vote, also overrode Walker’s provision to reduce court expenditures and revenue by $2 million to compensate for state aid, which was not included in the final budget.

Walker noted in the memo that the cut was made to “reflect the realities of the state budget” and that county property taxpayers should not have to absorb court costs because of the state’s failure to provide adequate funding.

“One thing these restorations continue to do is make it more difficult to make a case for the state to pony up, especially when the County Board continues to allow the burden to be picked up by county taxpayers,” said Walker.

Regardless, Brennan said the restored revenue was a necessity in order for the courts to avoid immediate cutbacks in operations.

“I still have some choices to make, but the first ones which would have been eliminated would have been weekend criminal courts intake and small claims court operations,” said Brennan. “Those are the only ones I can play with at all.”

Total expenditures for 2008 Combined Court Related Operations will be around $49.5 million with a tax levy of $36.9 million. While spending is up almost $7 million from 2007, Brennan said the figures are deceiving because of almost $6 million in abatement costs which does not translate to additional funding for the courts.