No layoffs, specialty court cuts in judicial budget

DES MOINES - A hiring freeze and sustained judicial vacancies will help cover a fiscal shortfall and avoid cutting popular rehabilitation programs such as drug courts under the state judicial branch budget set Wednesday by the Iowa Supreme Court.

Iowa's judicial branch, with more than 1,900 employees throughout the state's 99 counties, was given a status quo $178.7 million budget this year by state legislators. Judicial leaders said that was $5.4 million shy of what was needed to maintain the current level of services.

Instead, the judicial branch will institute a hiring freeze and keep open judge vacancies for six months. The moves are expected to save $4 million.

The remaining $1.4 million in required savings will be achieved through reductions in spending on furniture, technology, supplies, travel and training.

The budget achieves savings without cutting personnel or requiring furloughs, at least immediately.

'These are difficult times that require difficult decisions. Unfortunately, the grim reality is that I cannot guarantee you that we will not need to make a midcourse correction as we move through the year. This budget is a bit of a gamble,” state court administrator David Boyd wrote Wednesday in a memo addressed to all judicial branch employees.

The budget also spared the 55 specialty treatment programs such as drug courts and family rehabilitation courts; it even requires the Supreme Court's approval to eliminate any specialty courts currently in operation.

But the budget does call for a moratorium on the expansion of specialty courts.

'With this budget, the Supreme Court tried to minimize disruption of services to Iowans despite the significant shortfall in our appropriation,” Boyd said in a statement. 'The budget does not include court closure days or layoffs, but there will be consequences. With unfilled positions in courthouses around the state combined with fewer judges, Iowans can expect delays, and our troubled youth may not have as much interaction with juvenile court officers as they do now.”

Judges will not receive a raise; they have received only one since 2008. Judges' salaries are set by legislators.

Judicial leaders said the $5.4 million would have covered negotiated salary increases and increased health insurance costs.

With the staffing pinch, the Supreme Court has directed Boyd to conduct a judicial branch workload study, the results of which will guide future budget decisions, a news release said.

'The court will maintain regular meetings with the judicial council, judicial branch employees, attorneys, and business leaders to discuss the results of the judicial branch workload study, listen to the impact of budget decisions on services for Iowans, and develop long term planning options,” Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Cady said in a statement.