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Mahoning court merger costs unknown, officials say
YOUNGSTOWN
A municipal judge raised a legal question and a county court judge and a state senator raised financial questions about the Mahoning County Bar Association’s recently announced proposal to consolidate the county’s lower courts and eliminate part-time judgeships.
Judge Elizabeth Kobly of Youngstown Municipal Court wondered how cities, such as Campbell and Struthers, could be forced to abolish their municipal courts.
“How can you force a municipality to give up their court?” she asked. “The cities are entitled to have their courts,” she said, adding that she wasn’t sure if state legislation could change that.
However, she observed: “There’s a lot of wasted resources into all these different courts in the different places, and consolidation just makes sense.”
Judge Kobly said court consolidation is “long overdue” and that she favors elimination of part-time judgeships.
The bar association said having part-time judges creates a perception of conflict between their judicial roles and their private law practices. Full-time judges don’t have private law practices.
The bar association’s announcement of its position contained no figures as to the costs of building and operating new court facilities in Youngstown and possibly also in Canfield.
“The elephant in the room that no one’s looked at, and the judges have always said needs to be looked at, is the cost of this,” Judge Joseph Houser of Boardman Court said of the consolidation proposal.
“I think it’s going to surprise a lot of people that it’s going to substantially, potentially increase costs,” not lower costs, he said of the bar association’s proposal.
In addition to construction costs, a new court in or near Canfield that would combine the territory and functions of the existing Austintown, Canfield and Boardman courts would incur the costs of judges, prosecutors and sheriff’s deputies assigned there full time, Judge Houser noted.
The bar association’s preferred model is to merge Youngstown, Campbell and Struthers courts and their territories into an eastern division court located in downtown Youngstown and to merge Austintown, Boardman and Canfield courts and their territories into a western division court located in or near Canfield.
The association’s alternative proposal would be to consolidate all of those courts in downtown Youngstown at a lower cost.
Under either proposal, the Sebring Court would remain in place because of its geographic remoteness.
All of the existing lower courts in Mahoning County, except Youngstown Municipal Court, have part-time judges.
State Sen. Joseph Schiavoni of Boardman, D-33rd, said he wants to know where the money for new court construction would come from, where new courts would be located, whether they would have adequate parking and accessibility, how many full-time judges and support staff members would be needed to run the new system and how much money consolidation would save the taxpayers.
“Before I would be willing to sponsor and propose legislation to consolidate our courts in Mahoning County, I would need some of those questions answered,” Schiavoni said.
“It is important to fully develop an idea and prepare for anticipated questions before proposing a bill,” he added.
J. Michael Thompson, county bar association president, said it wasn’t the association’s purpose “to put forward a fully developed blueprint for court consolidation.”
Its purpose was “to find the best general answer” as to whether the lower courts should be consolidated, and Thompson said he believes the association has presented “the best answer.”
Thompson added: “We applaud the political courage of any official willing to address these issues seriously.”
Judge Houser noted that he’s heard estimates of a total cost between $7 million and $11 million for a new court in downtown Youngstown.
Youngstown Municipal Court has saved more than $2 million toward a new court facility, said George Denney, court administrator there.
“It’s what we’ve saved up for renovating our facility. It has nothing to do with court consolidation,” Judge Kobly said of her court’s savings.
“There’s a substantial shortfall still there to put together just for the Youngstown court, let alone consolidating Campbell and Struthers in there,” Judge Houser said.