Judge: City would suffer if judge were eliminated

By David Skolnick

Getting rid of one judge would save about $200,000 annually, a city official says.

YOUNGSTOWN — Part of the dispute between the city administration and the judicial branch are disagreements over the effectiveness of the judges and how much money could be saved if one of the three municipal court judges were eliminated.

Eliminating one judge would save the city about $100,000 a year, said Elizabeth A. Kobly, the court’s presiding and administrative judge.

The judge is off the mark and the actual annual savings is $200,000, said Anthony J. Farris, the city’s deputy law director. For a cash-strapped city, $200,000 can go a long way, Farris said.

The judge and Farris agree that getting rid of a judge would mean eliminating that judge’s secretary and bailiff.

A Youngstown Municipal Court judge earns $114,000 annually. But that is split evenly between the city, Mahoning County and the state.

The city’s portion of the judge’s annual salary is $38,000.

A bailiff receives an annual salary of about $51,000 and a judge’s secretary gets about $39,000 a year.

Those three salaries add up to $128,000 a year.

But it’s not just eliminating salaries that would save the city money, Farris said.

Between longevity pay [given to city workers based on the number of years they’ve worked there] as well as the city’s pension costs for those employees and health care expenses brings that annual dollar figure to $198,200, Farris said.

Whatever the savings, the city would suffer from losing a judge, Judge Kobly said.

Removing one judge would require the remaining judges to take on larger caseloads, and programs such as housing court would go, she said.

“We wouldn’t have the time to do that,” Judge Kobly said of housing court. That court’s mission is to enforce housing codes regarding the appearance and condition of properties in the city.

The city should study the impact of going to two judges and the efficiency of the current court system before making any decisions, Judge Kobly said.

While the city administration wants to reduce the number of municipal court judges, city council postponed a vote Wednesday on a resolution urging the state Legislature to pass a law eliminating one of the judges.

Council members said that a decision shouldn’t be made until a meeting takes place with all interested parties overseen by Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer of the Ohio Supreme Court.

Under a proposal by Mayor Jay Williams, the elimination would occur Dec. 31, 2011, the last day of Municipal Court Judge Robert P. Milich’s current term.

The judges and Williams’ administration also dispute the effectiveness of the judicial branch.

Data submitted to the Ohio Supreme Court by municipal judges for the year 2007, the most recent filing year, show Youngstown judges handle about half as many new court filings than the state average.

Youngstown’s average was 6,872 per judge compared to the statewide average of 12,446 per judge.

Both Judge Kobly and Judge Robert A. Douglas Jr., another municipal court judge, said the comparisons are unfair.

“We have a crime problem in Youngstown,” Judge Kobly said. “We are a smaller, smaller, smaller city with a bigger, bigger, bigger crime rate. We can’t be compared to other courts. The numbers don’t deal with the reality we face.”

The city has more violent crimes than most municipal courts, she said.

Also, it isn’t fair to compare violent crimes to speeding tickets just because they each count for one case, Judge Kobly said.

“It is not apples to apples,” Judge Douglas added. “There are differences between traffic and criminal cases.”

Williams disagrees.

“If you can’t compare courts why does the Ohio Supreme Court have the data to make the comparison?” he said.

“This is not something we made up. This is apples to apples.”

skolnick@vindy.com