Eliminate a Youngstown judgeship

A cynic surveying the room may have said to himself, “It’s the largest gathering of freeloaders the Mahoning Valley has seen.”

But this writer isn’t so cynical as to offer such a searing indictment of Mahoning County’s municipal and county court judges and other public officials seated around a long conference table in Youngstown State University’s Kilcawley Center discussing the judicial system. The host of the recent gathering was Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor of the Ohio Supreme Court. O’Connor, Steven Hollon, the high court’s administrative director, and Stephanie Hess, manager of Case Management Programs, came to Youngstown at the invitation of Atty. David Betras, chairman of the Mahoning County Democratic Party. They, along with Ingo Kriliz, principal court research consultant with the National Center for State Courts, led the local officials in a discussion about Mahoning County’s limited jurisdiction courts — those below the common pleas level.

Underlying the discussion was the issue of consolidation, or more specifically the creation of a metropolitan system to replace the municipal courts in Youngstown, Campbell and Struthers, the county courts in Boardman, Austintown, Canfield and Sebring and the mayor’s courts in Canfield, Craig Beach, Lowellville, New Middletown and Poland.

Instructive

What was instructive and revealing about the meeting at YSU was that not one of the judges in attendance stood up and said, “I strongly support the elimination of the courts below the common pleas level and the creation of a metropolitan system.” Why wouldn’t anyone say that? Two words: Public pension.

The public pension system is the greatest impediment to government reform. The formula that’s used to calculate a pension is based a combination of age, years of service and the average of the three highest years of earnings.

Retirees also receive health-care benefits.

Hence, the goal is to remain on the public payroll until the combination of the three factors provides the highest percentage of the three-high average salary.

This keep-my-job-at-all-costs attitude is especially evident among elected officials whose wages and benefits certainly exceed the responsibilities and workloads of the positions they hold.

Take the judiciary … please.

Full-time judges earn more than $100,000 and receive full benefits; part-time judges earn more than $50,000 and receive full benefits. And they all are eligible for public pensions.

That’s why any talk of eliminating a judgeship is met with strident opposition. It also explains why 30 years have passed since court consolidation in Mahoning County was first discussed.

But now, change may be in the offing — despite the barriers put up by those who work in the criminal justice system.

During Chief Justice O’Connor’s meeting, facts and figures were presented that show without a shadow of a doubt that the nine judgeships (below the common pleas level) are indefensible.

Target Youngstown

However, given that the formation of a metro system will take six years, according to a consolidation study conducted by Kriliz and his associates at the National Center for State Courts (and to think that God created the universe in six days and rested on the seventh)— can anything be done to immediately start the ball rolling? Absolutely. Get rid of one of the three municipal judgeships in Youngstown,

Judge Robert Douglas’s term ends in December 2013 and he cannot seek re-election because he will have reached the statutory retirement age.

Mayor Charles Sammarone, who has made government efficiency a priority, and members of city council, who have an upclose view of problems confronting the neighborhoods, should ask Mahoning County’s state legislative delegation to introduce a bill to reduce the number of judgeships in the Youngstown Municipal Court from three to two. If a formula in the state statute were applied, Youngstown would be eligible for only two. But state law doesn’t apply because there was a legislative exception made for Youngstown many years ago.

There is no basis for the argument that the workload in the municipal court warrants three judges. A future column will lay out the facts.