Layoffs for 20 percent of Alabama’s court system staff, trial delays forecast if funds cut

Layoffs, trial delays forecast for Alabama courts

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — More than 20 percent of Alabama’s court system employees might have to be laid off and jury trials postponed if its budget is cut as deeply as some have projected, the state’s chief justice said.

Gov. Bob Riley’s administration has warned most non-education state agencies that they will get 9 percent less than the Legislature appropriated for them during the first nine months of the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. The cut is due to the recession pushing state revenue lower than expected.

“If we took the same cuts as the state agencies, we’d have to lay off 500 to 600 people” out of 2,600, Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb, who leads the state court system, said Thursday.

Cobb said the courts would have to look at delaying all types of trials, except for criminal trials in counties with jail overcrowding problems.

The Legislature appropriated $186.7 million for Alabama’s trial and appellate courts. That was supposed to be up from the scaled-backed budget of $180.3 million in the previous fiscal year.

But state revenue isn’t coming in as fast as state officials expected when the Legislature approved this year’s appropriations. That prompted Riley’s administration to begin making cuts. If courts took the same cuts as other state operations, the appropriation would drop below last year’s level.

Court officials and the Riley administration have been in negotiations about the cuts since September.

“There is no choice but to reduce spending in all sectors of state government,” said Todd Stacy, Riley’s press secretary.

Cuts hadn’t been set for the court system yet, he said.

Cobb said judicial officials understand the state government’s financial problems. “If there are layoffs in the executive branch, we will lay off in the judicial branch,” she said.

Callie Dietz, Alabama’s administrative director of courts, said the system is different from many state operations. It doesn’t get a lot of federal funds. Instead, 92 percent of its money comes from the state budget.

Also, 97 percent of its funding goes for personnel costs. That means the court system can’t obtain big savings by delaying equipment purchases or building maintenance.

If the system has to take a big cut, it will be a repeat of Riley’s first year in office in 2003, when the state’s financial problems caused court officials to lay off employees and curtail the hours that circuit clerks’ offices were open.

Funding improved, but there was never enough to rehire all those who were let go, Dietz said.

At the same time the court system is looking at financial problems, workers are busy repairing the state judicial building in downtown Montgomery. The limestone structure houses Dietz’ staff and the state’s appellate courts.

Dietz said the work is separate from the court system’s state budget funding. The work is being done with a $10 million bond issue approved by the Legislature to fix leaks that caused judicial officials to put out buckets during every rain storm.