Harvey County District Court for most purposes will close for more than five weeks if the Kansas Legislature does not reinstate $8 million that was slashed from the court budget this year.
Salaries account for about 98 percent of the state district court budget.
Counties pay for operating expenses such as utilities and supplies.
A cut in state funds means the Kansas Supreme Court has been forced to order five one-week furloughs in each month from February through June and an additional two-day furlough in May.
Including court clerk, court services and judges’ staff, 16 people in Harvey County will be affected.
The dates for the furloughs are Feb. 15 to 19, March 15 to 19, April 5 to 9, May 10 to 14 and 28 and 29 and June 7 to 11.
The Kansas Supreme Court has ordered all courts in the state to adhere to the same furlough dates.
The order from the Supreme Court has hourly court employees wondering how they will pay their bills and all court staff, including salaried judges, wondering how the court will perform basic functions during and after the furloughs.
The furloughs will affect all court service and court clerk staff. Salaried judges will be exempt.
State law does not allow for salaries of state judges to be decreased during their terms unless they do so voluntarily.
The furloughs will be unpaid but are set up so employees will miss no more than one week in any two-week pay period.
“Financially, a lot of us are already struggling,” said Deena Jones, deputy court clerk. “Some of us have spouses who have been laid off or furloughed. We have a single mom who works here.
“It will have a huge financial impact in different aspects of our lives. Three of us already have part-time jobs.”
Judges on
their own
During the furlough, only constitutionally necessary and emergency functions will be available.
Judges will be ordered to hear criminal cases including:
• Determining probable cause for arrest without a warrant.
• Conducting first appearances.
• Setting bonds and release conditions.
• Issuing search warrants, arrest warrants and probation violation warrants.
• Issuing wiretap orders.
The judges will hear some cases involving juveniles, including detention hearings and child-in-need-of-care cases.
Care and treatment cases for people with alcohol abuse problems or mental illness will be heard.
Judges will be able to issue protection from abuse orders and protection from stalking orders.
The Supreme Court also said judges may issue isolation and quarantine orders or tend to other emergency matters as determined necessary by the Supreme Court.
“No one is going to be let loose from jail because a judge was not available,” Harvey County District Court Chief Judge Richard Walker said.
State statute allows court cases to be filed by fax, and this will continue despite the scheduled furloughs. However, no jury trials will take place during furloughs.
Walker said he expected the influx of fax filing will create a “tremendous influx of paper.”
Judges will not be allowed to accept any money for court fees, fines or traffic violations.
Harvey County attorney David Yoder said he and his staff will have to work one-on-one with judges to make sure cases are dealt with within constitutional time limits. Judges will have to do their own scheduling, time stamp or “clock in” cases and other administrative work they usually have staff to do.
“It is going to be a severe constraint on the court system,” Yoder said. “Judges will have to serve as their own administrative assistants during this time frame.”
Facing backlogs
The Supreme Court already has tried to make up part of the $15.9 million (13.8 percent of the court budget) the Legislature cut during the 2009 session.
It applied a $10-per-case surcharge on most cases, the maximum allowed under state statute, applied for a $831,000 federal stimulus grant, eliminated the use of retired judges to hear cases, extended a hiring freeze that had been in place for a year, instituted early closing of court offices in almost all judicial districts and eliminated 193 part-time employees statewide.
Robin Sheldon, Harvey County chief clerk, held up a stack of paperwork about the thickness of a phonebook and pointed to similar piles around the court clerk’s office.
She said her office already has fallen behind on many basic clerical functions because of the part-time staff layoffs.
This means court files are not as up-to-date and issuances of summons, garnishment and orders to appear are lagging behind, Sheldon said.
As a result, the county attorney’s staff has started making extra copies of case fillings so they can have a copy for the judge at the time of hearings, Yoder said.
Sheldon said she has one part-time person remaining who does background records checks for other courts, the Army and members of the public. The checks soon may end.
“The searches are getting backlogged, but I may have to put her to a use that will be more beneficial to the public,” she said.
Digging out
Sheldon said she expects things to get worse if the furloughs are implemented as scheduled.
“I don’t think the average person in the public is going to know. They might not be able to get a marriage license or do a records search, but for us, it’s going to be a rough time,” she said.
Sheldon said just dealing with the backlog of mail accumulating during a week will be a nightmare.
Despite many workers’ worries about the mounds of paperwork they expect to accumulate, they will be prohibited from working on a voluntary basis.
Yoder said he also is concerned about the backlog of paperwork the furloughs could create.
“I don’t know how the clerk’s office is going to deal with all the stuff piled up and still be open public,” he said. “The public is going to want to get in to see the clerk to apply for marriage licenses and file small claims actions. All kinds of public services that the clerk’s office provides will come to a stop, and the public is going to be chomping at the bit to get in there.
“Once they get dug out, they are going to be furloughed again, and it is going to happen all over again.”
The county attorney’s office has been shorthanded during the past year, which has caused a backlog of criminal cases. Yoder said his office plans to have more criminal filings in 2010 as they become fully staffed and catch up.
“We filed 500 cases this year, and it is not going to get any less (in 2010). They are going to have less time to catch up, putting them farther behind,” Yoder said. “It is not looking pretty for 2010. We are near panic mode. Its it going to be a mess.”
As a partial remedy, the Supreme Court has considered allowing the court offices to be open to the public shorter hours during non-furlough weeks — possibly from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
What next?
Despite the orders handed down by the Supreme Court earlier this month, Walker said some issues remain up in the air.
The furloughs could be eliminated if the Legislature allocates the $8 million cut from the courts’ budget.
“I hope this is all an academic exercise, and the Legislature will give us the money and all will be well,” Walker said.
The governor has proposed a supplemental appropriation of $5 million for the state court system, which could reduce the length of the furloughs.
But Walker said the Supreme Court could not wait to see what the Legislature would do.
“The Supreme Court has to plan for the worst-case scenario, and that is to lay off workers one week a month,” Walker said.
Walker gave a presentation to the Harvey County Commission on the scheduled furloughs at its meeting Monday.
Commission Chip Westfall said he was frustrated at the way the decisions on the furloughs were made.
“This is going to affect many departments,” he said. “They did not bring us into the discussion. We are still going to have to pump hot air and cold air to that floor. I think they may be grandstanding a little here.”
Commissioner Marge Roberson said it may be time to reevaluate the funding system for the courts.
“It seems the system is broken, and it is not just a people problem,” she said.
Walker warned this spring may not be the worst of the state’s courts’ budget woes.
“They are saying that 2010 and 2011 are going to make this look like a picnic,” he said.
