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Saturday, August 20, 2005

Ind. Courts - More on "Montgomery County judges issue mandate for staff raises"

Following up on the ILB entry Thursday on the action by Montgomery County judges mandating appropriations for staff raises, the Crawfordville Journal Review has an interesting story today by Wade Coggeshall. Some quotes:

Montgomery County Commissioners have fired back at county judges who on Tuesday mandated $10,000 pay raises for court reporters and other employees.
In a letter addressed to judges David Ault, Thomas K. Milligan and Peggy Q. Lohorn, commissioners wrote, “Please be advised that there are no unappropriated monies in the 2005 budget from which to pay the mandated salary increases. The council requests that you rescind your order given our financial circumstances.”

The council also invited the judges to the Aug. 30 public hearing regarding the 2006 budget, which starts at 8 a.m. in the city building. * * *

“It is unfair judicial employees receive a pay increase due to a mandate while dedicated employees in other offices go without,” wrote David Bottorff, executive director of the Association of Indiana Counties, in an e-mail. “I believe every elected office holder in Montgomery County would like for their employees to receive a pay increase but there is no money. In the case of Montgomery County, other county employees may lose their jobs to satisfy the mandate. State law and economic conditions in a county control how much a county can increase (its) budget each year. Councils are not allowed to increase taxes at will, so cuts to other services will be necessary to comply with the mandate.”

Bottorff wrote such mandates seem to be becoming a statewide trend.

“We are receiving reports from councilmen around the state that threats of mandates are becoming more frequent, or at least they are being reported to us more often. Many counties do what their judges request simply because they do not want to go through the process of a mandate. When a county pursues a mandate, a judge from another county decides if the mandate must be followed. If a county does challenge the judicial mandate, they may end up paying the legal bills for the judge no matter what the court decides.”

The reference at the end of the last paragraph is to the requirement of Indiana Trial Rule 60.5, which establishes procedures, including the appointment of a special judge, to resolve intra-county disputes over the funding for court operations.

Here is an example from a Nov. 6, 2004 ILB entry titled "State Supreme Court names special judge to hear arguments over Posey courthouse." And here is a copy of the Supreme Court's September 2004 Order appointing a special judge in the matter in the Posey Circuit Court.

Announcement. This may be a good time for my announcement that I have accepted an invitation to contribute a monthly column to the Indiana State Bar Association's monthly publication, Res Gestae. The column will be called "To elaborate ...". I intend to use the longer format to investigate and expand upon topics first mentioned in The Indiana Law Blog.

Serendipitously, the topic of my first column, completed and turned in on August 10th, is -- the judicial mandate. The September 2005 issue of Res Gestae will arrive in the mail in a few weeks to ISBA members. Thereafter, I have Res Gestae's authorization to make a copy of the column available online. (The hardest thing for me to get used to will be the l-o-n-g turnaround time; I'm used to instantaneous posting.)

Posted by Marcia Oddi on August 20, 2005 11:00 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts