Court funding: A roundtable discussion with some key players 

Posted: 1:00 am Mon, March 30, 2009
By Barbara L. Jones

Editor’s note: For video of the roundtable event, click here.

As a conversation about the court budget winds its way around a table of lawyers and judges, it becomes clear that society is like a balloon — pushing on one place, like the justice system, only causes a bulge in another place, and then that bulge becomes a point of weakness. And pushing too hard will cause the balloon to burst.

But that is the foreseeable scenario if the courts aren’t properly funded, participants in a Minnesota Lawyer-sponsored round table discussion on Wednesday, March 11, warned. At about $300 million, the court budget is a tiny yet critical element in the operation of society.

Participating in the round table were Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Eric Magnuson, Brown County District Court Judge John Rodenberg, Hennepin County Bar Association President Mary Vasaly, State Public Defender John Stuart, Mid Minnesota Legal Assistance Executive Director Jerry Lane, Dakota County Attorney Jim Backstrom, and Minnesota State Bar Association Treasurer Terry Votel.

The panel discussed how the criminal justice system won’t work properly without public defenders and crime will likely increase. Without legal services lawyers, housing and domestic abuse problems will be unaddressed, causing crises that require expensive solutions such as shelter housing. Without civil trials, contracts won’t be enforceable and business won’t be conducted. And without the courts collecting fines and costs, the state’s general fund will decrease by about $200 million.

“We are all so interconnected. As soon as you start pushing one area, you’re going to have problems somewhere else. It’s really going to be a nightmare if we don’t get adequate funding,” Backstrom said.

The rule of law is at stake

The situation is as follows: A year ago the state was looking at a small budget surplus and the court system was then about $19 million underfunded. When the judicial branch submitted a budget it sought moderate increases in judicial salaries and other expenses. Then the economy fell off a cliff and pay raises and other increases went away. “When we realized the seriousness of the budget situation, the first thing we did was take judicial pay increases out of our budget request,” Magnuson said.

So now the courts are running with about 9 percent fewer staff than they need, and looking at additional cuts. Last January Gov. Tim Pawlenty asked all state agencies to cut 5 percent more from their budgets. That was less than the 10 percent cut that had been discussed, but still could have dire consequences for the courts and society as a whole. (Pawlenty restored $10 million to his proposed budget for the courts, effectively reducing the proposed cut to $3.3 percent or about $20 million. The budget is now in the hands of the Legislature.)

Magnuson has repeatedly warned that court services will be eliminated and processing delayed if adequate funding for the courts is not forthcoming. Matters that are important, but relatively less important, will not be heard because the court staff will have to be cut by hundreds of employees. Those matters potentially include small claims court, some misdemeanors such as shoplifting and check bouncing, traffic violations, harassment, family court and low-level juvenile delinquency — a large part of the justice system.

“These are very important civil matters. People who need speedy resolution will not find it,” Votel said at the roundtable.

But Magnuson and Rodenberg clarified that a civil trial moratorium is not on the table right now. “We ran that up the flagpole and then decided that we would try something else,” Magnuson said.

A decrease in services ironically means less money into the state’s coffers. “These are the cases that generate an enormous amount of fine revenue, which then is distributed to the general fund. The general fund ends up more in the hole than it would have been had it not stopped doing the cases,” said Vasaly.

But there are more severe consequences than a decrease in fine collections, and that is the damage to the rule of law, Magnuson said. “We are destroying the fabric of our society. It’s that serious,” the chief justice said. “If you can’t enforce the laws you might as well not have any.

“You need the courts at times of great social unrest. People need to think there’s something they can count on,” Magnuson said.

There may be a disparate impact on different communities if court services are eliminated. Votel said that he recently met with representatives of the Native American community who are concerned about cuts to child welfare cases and the lower priority crimes like delinquency that affect their population.

Failure to enforce even low-level criminal laws like graffiti or truancy will lead to more crime, Backstrom predicted. Dealing with offenses like harassment prevents future violence, he said.

“It’s a very slippery slope to go down,” Backstrom said. Similarly, the “small” civil matters are very important in the lives of litigants. People in conciliation court have legitimate disputes that can turn hostile, he said.

The rule of law also is fundamental to economic health, Vasaly pointed out. “Large corporations … need to have the confidence that they can resolve issues quickly so they retain the economic value of those rights,” she said.

Similarly, small businesses rely on the rule of law. “If you don’t enforce worthless check laws you’re hurting small business. If the landlord can’t get an unlawful detainer, you’re cutting at the economic viability of society,” Magnuson said.

While corporations may opt out of the courts in favor of private dispute resolution, Vasaly said, “This has two evil effects. The rule of law will not be developed. We are a common law society and we depend on law to be developed through the resolution of cases. The other effect is to create a justice system for the well-to-do and a justice system for the indigent who will be faced with significant delays.”

Litigants who can resolve their disputes with the aid of arbitration or mediation, or other methods, are doing so and saving court resources, Votel noted. However, sometimes those programs, like Hennepin County’s nonbinding arbitration, fall victim to budget cuts.

Flipping an efficiency switch

Pawlenty has remarked that the courts, like the rest of the state, have to become more efficient and learn to do more with less. No one is saying efficiency can’t be improved, but it can’t be done overnight, Magnuson said. Furthermore, “You can’t ‘efficient’ your way out of the budget cuts we’re being asked to take,” he added.

“We can’t just flip an efficiency switch,” Rodenberg agreed. He explained that the access and service delivery committee
of the judicial council has studied the ways to become more efficient by centralizing some services such as processing payables. “The goal eventually would be to allow the less populous counties to staff at a level commensurate with the larger counties. …If we can give those smaller counties the tools to work as efficiently as in the more populous areas we can continue service throughout the state but decrease the demand for employees,” he said.

Furthermore, the budget cuts will hit Legal Aid and public defenders, who provide the lawyers for the poor and allow the courts to function more smoothly. “We are a real filtration system for the courts on multiple levels,” Lane said. Legal Aid lawyers can settle cases, suggest alternatives to litigation or prevent frivolous claims from going forward, he explained. “We save the court system $5 million a year in court time,” Lane said.

Legal Aid also provides personal and Web-based assistance to pro se litigants and lobbies for more effective legislation, Lane added. It saves other state agencies money when it helps people get child support to reimburse welfare costs or get federal instead of state disability assistance, he said. Legal Aid lawyers help domestic abuse survivors get orders for protection and thereby save about $4 million a year in shelter costs, Lane said.

Cuts also will hit civil or criminal programs that divert people from the justice system. A number of problem-solving courts have been created to prevent repeat offenses or imprisonment and are at risk from budget cuts — and repeat offenses and incarceration cost more than the problem-solving courts, Stuart said. Three people who graduated from drug court recently are working and paying taxes because their addiction was addressed, while incarcerating three people would have cost $100,000 a year, he added.

“So I hope that in the interests of making things more efficient we don’t just send folks to prison,” Stuart said.

Pressure points

Magnuson said he is impressed by the dedication and team spirit of the court staff, but it’s starting to fade. “People can’t take the pressure. It’s easier to get a job at the Mayo Clinic and not worry about [budgets] than it is to stay working at the courts.”

Staff turnover does nothing to improve court efficiency, Magnuson pointed out. “It takes training to be a good court staff person. When we lose those people we’ve lost knowledge. I’m glad to be part of the system, but I’m more concerned than I used to be,” he said.

Legal Aid lawyers are concerned about their jobs but are also concerned about the “meaner lives” that will result if the court system deteriorates. “You’re going to see the impact of these cuts in the schools, in the streets, in hospital emergency rooms. This is not about lawyers and judges,” Lane said.