“ I’ve been doing this for 26 years. It’s as bad as I’ve seen it. Judge Kenneth Sandvik ”
Outgoing North Shore Judge Kenneth Sandvik is concerned about how accessible court services are going to be in the future for people in rural areas like Cook County. As the state continues to struggle with severe budget challenges, the Minnesota Judicial Branch may be facing significant funding reductions. On August 17, 2010 Judge Sandvik addressed the county board and encouraged commissioners to make their concerns known to legislators.
In an August 11 memo to Lake and Cook county board secretaries, Sandvik wrote that while the Minnesota Judicial Branch (MJB) does not have the authority to shut down courthouses, it has some authority to reduce the hours and number of court administration offices he called “service centers.”
At the county board meeting, he said the state appropriates funding “as a whole” to the MJB. Money is then doled out to individual counties partly on the basis of the number of judges they need. This formula works best for Hennepin County, he said. Cook County varies between .3 and .4 judges (less than a third to less than a half of one position). Lake County pretty consistently needs .5.
Travel time for judges to reach various courthouses is averaged, so those who travel the most get less credit for their travel time than those who travel the least.
Funding also depends on how many court administration employees are needed to service an area. Hennepin County court administration employees take on specialized roles, allowing them to work very efficiently because they do the same tasks all the time. Rural employees must deal with all types of cases, the judge said, and cannot run their offices as efficiently as their urban counterparts.
Thetrend is to shut down court administration offices and have people send in their ticket fines to regional ticket payment centers rather than delivering them to people behind a desk at their local courthouse.
“The state deficit is likely to result in cuts to funding of local courts,” Sandvik said. After this fall’s elections, a new governor and legislature could change things for better or for worse for Cook County, but the judge is not optimistic about what might be coming down the pike for Lake and Cook counties. “I’ve been doing this for 26 years,” Sandvik said. “It’s as bad as I’ve seen it.”
Funding cuts could result in fewer courts remaining open. If court were not held locally, counties would have to pay their attorneys, law enforcement personnel, and human services staff to travel to other areas to attend court.
Commissioner Bruce Martinson said it sounds like the counties will end up spending more money to bring people to the courts than the state will save by reducing its funding. Judge Sandvik said he has asked how much the county would need to pay the state to keep services as they are, but he has not been able to get an answer from his superiors.
People talk about the financial cost of keeping court services local, Commissioner Jim Johnson said, but there is also “the cost of keeping order in society” that has value on its own. Keeping order should be considered before the financial cost, he said.
The people making decisions about how the Minnesota Judicial Branch’s allocation is doled out “are not a collaborative type of people,” the judge said. They are judges, accustomed to handing down decisions. He didn’t think Cook County would be asked for its input, but he doesn’t think unsolicited input would necessarily be resisted, either.
Sandvik suggested that commissioners talk to their state legislators, Senator Tom Bakk and Representative David Dill. “I don’t want to tell you what to do,” he said, “but I don’t think anyone else is going to give you this message.
“…It is my belief that there are others, including the people, through the county boards and local elected officials, who ought be heard and ought have an opportunity for input,” Sandvik wrote in his memo.
“The stakeholders are the citizens,” Commissioner Bob Fenwick said, “and they’re totally left out.” He contended that centralized services never work out financially for the citizens. When the state takes over programs, he said, funding gets cut and programs cease. More Americans now live in cities than in rural areas, and when the government makes financial decisions, it will favor the cities, he said. He advocated for local units of government to be handed few mandates and be given more choice in how to spend their money.
Regarding cuts to court services, Judge Sandvik said, “I think it may come. I hope it doesn’t come, but I’m not optimistic.” He believes that by the start of the new biennium next July, the MJB’s budget might be reduced by 5 or 10 percent.
Sandvik will be retiring at the end of this term. A new judge will be elected this November.
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