COLUMBIANA COUNTY Pay for jurors increases to $20 per day

Bids will be opened next month to build a new municipal courthouse.
By NORMAN LEIGH
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
LISBON -- Juror pay typically isn't anything to quit your day job for, but Columbiana County officials are trying to ease the financial burden for those performing the civil service.
Commissioners agreed Wednesday to boost juror pay in county common pleas court from $15 to $20 daily for trial jurors. The $10 paid per day for grand jurors also will go to $20 daily.
Commissioners took the action at the request of the common pleas judges.
Judges David Tobin and C. Ashley Pike noted that it's been nearly two decades since juror pay was increased.
"We realize that jury fees are not wages but are more of an honorarium for service," the judges wrote to commissioners. But the $10-$15 rate is just too low, they argued.
The judges didn't say how much it will cost the county to increase the pay. But they noted there is enough in the court's budget to absorb the increase.
Commissioners noted that state law allows jurors to collect up to $40 daily.
In February 2000, former Judge Douglas Jenkins asked commissioners to boost the pay to $25 per day.
Commissioners rejected the request, saying the county, which was in a fiscal crisis, couldn't afford it.
Court construction
In other court matters, commissioners approved advertising for bids for construction of the proposed $3.4 million county municipal court.
Bids for general contractor as well as electrical, plumbing, fire protection, and heating and ventilation contractors will be opened Dec. 17 and contracts awarded sometime before year's end.
Work on the structure, to be built on Saltwell Road, is expected to begin in the spring and will take about a year to finish.
The new courthouse won't replace the county's historical courthouse downtown. The new building will house the county's municipal courts, which are in three rented storefronts in Lisbon, Salem and East Palestine.
Fees from defendants in criminal and traffic cases will pay for the new structure.
Commissioners also said the county's cost to belong to a multicounty agency that deals with troubled juveniles will be significantly lower in 2004.
Commissioner Sean Logan said next year's share will be about $390,000, thanks partly to cost-cutting by the agency and a $190,000 payment from a county that owed other county members money.
Columbiana County's cost this year to belong to the agency is about $700,000.
leigh@vindy.com