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Budget concerns force court furlough days
Published 3/19/2010 in Local News
By SHAJIA AHMAD
About 50 employees in the judicial district that covers six southwest Kansas counties will be forced to take furlough days in April and May due to the state's budget problems. Local officials say the forced unpaid leave places an added burden on already stressed court system and the workers who manage it.
The State Supreme Court announced this month that all court staff except judges must take unpaid leave on four Fridays — April 9, 16 and 23, and May 7 — temporarily shutting down district court offices across the state and delaying court proceedings.
The furlough days are unprecedented, said Diana Jones, a court administrator that oversees the district courts in the 25th Judicial District, which includes Finney, Hamilton, Kearny, Wichita, Greeley and Scott counties.
The four designated furlough days are an estimated cost-savings measure of about $15,200 in the district that covers six counties, according to Ron Keefover, an information officer with the state's judicial administration office.
Jones said district court employees including clerks, court reporters and court services personnel are already operating under a state-wide hiring freeze that began in late 2008 — at least three full-time positions in the local judicial district cannot yet be filled because of the freeze. Employees are also operating under the state's mandate last year to eliminate temporary hours, a de facto layoff of about 193 employees statewide, according to the Office of Judicial Administration.
"We have less people doing the same amount of work," Jones said. "You also have people having babies, leaving for surgery, becoming ill, so, yes, things are getting very, very tight for us."
During the furlough days, the only court proceedings that may be conducted involve various critical functions, which include some criminal court proceedings such as determining probable cause for arrests without a warrant, conducting first appearances, issuing warrants and protection-from-abuse orders pursuant to state statutes.
Because judges will still be working, they will be able to approve search or arrest warrants for law enforcement officials, but paperwork will be put on hold until clerical employees return to work the following Mondays, Jones said.
The closed offices and paperwork delays are especially problematic, said Finney County Attorney John Wheeler, because attorneys are still required to maintain fair and speedy court proceedings for their clients, and the state's furlough days do not take those obligations away. The county attorney's office will remain open — county employees who work in district court are not affected — and its employees will continue to work with judges on furlough days.
"It does help us to know what days they're declaring furloughs, and it helps us that they're spreading them out," Wheeler said. "We'll do the best we can to get through this, but for people that work in the court system, it's particularly stressful for them, especially in this economy."
In addition, couples who plan to marry often come in to the district court office to obtain their marriage licenses on the Friday prior to their weekend weddings and will now need to plan around the furlough days, Jones added.
In addition to the closure dates, offices of the clerks of the district court may be closed to the public for additional time periods to allow staff uninterrupted time in which to process the backlogs resulting from the furlough days.
Jones said the district court office in Finney County has been closing to the public at 4 p.m. for several years, to allow workers time to file paperwork uninterrupted until the end of the day, and she doesn't anticipate further closures to the public at this time.
"We'll just have to wait and see what happens," Jones added.
State officials had initially feared they would need to order up to 30 days of furloughs to cope with the budget crisis. Salaries make up about 98 percent of the Kansas Judicial Branch, making budget-saving measures beyond unpaid leave difficult to execute, state officials have said.
In addition to eliminating temporary hours and continuing the hiring freeze, state court officials also instituted some surcharge of court filings last year, and a law taking effect late last week also cut judges' salaries by 5 percent for the rest of this fiscal year, which ends June 30.
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