State funding could restore Iowa courts to full-time status

Clerks of court offices in all 99 counties could return to full-time status and maintain regular weekly hours if the Legislature funds the judicial branch's $167.7 million request for next year and provides additional money to cover salary costs, a top court official said Wednesday.

Currently, all clerk offices – including the Iowa Supreme Court and Iowa Court of Appeals – are closed on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons to enable a smaller statewide workforce to keep up with the demands of civil, criminal, juvenile and other case loads, said State Court Administrator David Boyd. About one-fourth of the courthouses keep part-time hours or are closed at more times in the aftermath of a 2009 state budget cut that reduced the judicial branch's statewide workforce by 12 percent, he added.

Boyd saw a glimmer of hope for getting operations back to normal at some future time when the Senate Appropriations Committee voted 12-7 Wednesday to fully fund the courts' request for fiscal 2014 – a spending level that would support 1,909 full-time positions and address staffing shortage areas. He said it appears there is support as well in the Iowa House for the proposed $167.7 million request to operate the court system during the fiscal year that begins July 1.

The extra $5.6 million over current year funding would support more juvenile court officers “that are badly needed to help us keep up with our case load on the delinquency side,” said Boyd, along with bolstering support for trial court with more court recorders, court attendances and law clerk positions.

However, Boyd said, there is a caveat. Last year the split-control Legislature gave the courts an extra $4 million but the increased funding went mostly to provide salary and benefit increases that were not covered separately because lawmakers did not provide salary adjustments on top of the base budget.

If that happens again this year, and it could because Republicans who control the Iowa House have indicated they do not intend to run a separate salary bill, he said, then the judicial branch may not be able to open clerk offices for longer hours or return to a full-time system statewide.

“It would reduce how far we could go,” Boyd said.

Along with money to cover compensation increases mandated by collective bargaining agreements and proposed by Gov. Terry Branstad for non-contract state employees, Boyd said judicial branch officials are “very hopeful that the issue of judicial compensation will be addressed.” He said judges and magistrates last received salary increases in July 2008 and many saw their take-home pay diminished due to unpaid furlough days and a 1.65 percent increase in their retirement contributions in recent years.

“Our judges and magistrates have certainly born the brunt of much of what we had to do in the last three or four years,” he said. The proposed fiscal 2014 funding level would enable the courts to restore about half of the 200 people that were laid off due to recession-era state budget cuts, he added.

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