Unhappy with a decision to cut two municipal judgeships, Atlanta City Councilman Ivory Young is expected to press Tuesday for their reinstatement at a cost of more than $1 million annually.
Young and several other council members want to undo the council's 9-5 decision last week to eliminate the positions of two retiring judges, bringing the number of municipal judges to eight. Mayor Kasim Reed, who appoints municipal judges, is considering vetoing the measure..
Young will raise the issue at Tuesday's meeting of the Pubic Safety Committee, which he heads as chairman.
The move annoys Councilwoman Natalyn Archibong, who said the last council vote should have decided the matter, especially since tight budgets have forced the council to cut services in other areas such as parks.
She said the reduction could save the city between $1.2 million and $1.6 million next fiscal year. To recoup that much, the council would have to eliminate the staff that went with each position. The budget currently includes funding for the staff for one of the judgeships, but the positions could still be eliminated, Archibong said.
“The City Council asked internal auditors to look at court operations ... and the auditors recommended we lower the number of judges," she said. "It seemed to me we could do more with less.”
Reed said through a spokeswoman that 10 judges would be needed to handle increased ticket volume, and he expects Atlanta police to step up traffic enforcement. The audit, however, found that court cases would have to double to justify having 10 judges.
The audit recommended eliminating four judges and 19 staff employees, including assistant solicitors, case managers and public defenders.
Meanwhile, David Edwards, who oversaw the downsizing of city courts as a policy adviser during Mayor Shirley Franklin's administration, said evidence was clear in studies done during the last year of the Franklin administration that the court was bloated.
In a letter to Councilwoman Yolanda Adrean, Edwards lambasted the council's reluctance to cut the court, saying both the Franklin administration analyses and the current audit showed the city could save $2 million a year by having only five judges.
Citing an audit finding that the judges averaged 11 hours a week on the bench for the first six months of last year, Edwards wrote, "By my math we are already paying these judges $360 per hour of court time."
Council members C.T. Martin, Lamar Willis and Keisha Lance Bottoms dismissed the audit as flawed. Martin labeled the report "bogus" while Willis and Bottoms, both lawyers, questioned its conclusions.
“I don’t’ believe they had the adequate tools to evaluate this scenario. ... They needed to have a lawyer in there," Willis said.
Ward said the audit met the national standards for analyzing a city department or Municipal Court.
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