Supreme Court should stop silliness in Girard city court

Just a couple of days after we urged Ohio Chief Justice Thomas Moyer to get involved in the controversy surrounding the Girard Municipal Court, Judge Michael Bernard seemed to come out in support of our position -- in a manner of speaking.
Judge Bernard asked the Supreme Court to reconsider its rejection of his demand for more operating funds from Girard City Council.
The high court's rejection came in the form of its refusal to even hear the original motion filed by Bernard.
Now, the city judge wants the justices to reconsider and he cites several reasons why, including his belief that city officials no longer want the city to have its own court.
But that isn't the reason the Girard Municipal Court warrants scrutiny by the Supreme Court. The ongoing battle between Bernard and city council and Mayor James Melfi has become a public embarrassment that will continue to boil so long as the judge believes he has a right to more money to operate his court than any objective standard deems reasonable.
Indeed, as the mayor has pointed out on more than one occasion, the court would not be in its current financial plight had Bernard taken to heart the findings of a state auditor's office performance audit. The audit, conducted more than five years ago, revealed that the court in Girard was overstaffed by four and a half positions compared with similar courts in the state.
Rather than cut personnel, Bernard kept demanding budget amounts that council and the mayor could not, in fairness to the other departments and agencies, justify.
Fiscal oversight commission
The city's fiscal emergency status, which has triggered the takeover of Girard's finances by a state fiscal oversight commission, resulted in budget cuts across the board. Yet, Judge Bernard has been intransigent and has embraced the flawed philosophy that the judicial branch reigns supreme when it comes to demands for funding from the legislative branch.
What makes the situation in Girard especially galling is that Bernard has been told by higher courts that his budget request for the 2006 fiscal year was unreasonable. Yet, he persists in fighting with council and the mayor, rather than cooperating with them in developing a reasonable budget.
As we pointed out in our earlier editorial in which we called on Justice Moyer to step in and conduct an independent evaluation of the Girard court, the underlying issue is about the number of cases handled by the Bernard and and whether the size of his payroll can be justified.
Now that Judge Bernard has asked the Supreme Court to reconsider its rejection of his motion for more money, we would hope that Moyer will get involved.
We see no reason for the entire court to waste its time going over a case that the 11th District Court of Appeals already reviewed and ruled on.
The time has come for an objective evaluation of the situation in Girard.
The chief justice must realize that the entire judiciary is on trial because of what's happening in Girard.