Mayor Kasim Reed has vetoed legislation that according to a city audit would be a step toward saving the city millions in unnecessary spending in the Atlanta Municipal Court.
The City Council last Monday voted by 9-5 to reduce the court from 10 judge positions to eight after the City Auditor analyzed the courts and reported that it only needed five judges to handle the caseload. The audit, which said the cuts would save at least $2.3 million a year if judges were cut by five positions, was the latest finding the court is overstaffed -- a position judges have bitterly contested. According to City Council numbers, which say it costs $870,000 a year for each judgeship, the savings would be much higher.
Late Tuesday, Reed vetoed the cuts that would have blocked him from appointing judges to two vacancies, which are prized positions. Reed has said he expects more tickets from Atlanta Police, and 10 judges -- not all of whom handle traffic tickets -- will be needed to handle the volume. The city audit, which noted in 2010 judges averaged 11 hours a week on the bench, determined tickets would have to double for the judges to start working a normal work week.
"It is a step in the wrong direction," said David Edwards, a policy adviser on city courts for former Mayor Shirley Franklin, of Reed's veto. “I don’t see any policy rationale for not reducing judges not only to eight but to five.”
The mayor disputes the findings of City Auditor Leslie Ward, who does performance audits on city departments, said his spokeswoman Sonji Jacobs Dade. Reed has not explained specifically why he thinks the audit is flawed.
The Atlanta City Council requested the audit in 2010 after increasing the budget for the court, solicitor and public defender by $1.8 million to add staff.
The council majority will need one more vote to override Reed's veto
Councilwoman Felicia Moore said she introduced the legislation cutting the court to eight instead of five because two judges have retired and that avoided forcing the council to choose which judges to cut. She said she understood at least two other judges may also retire soon and those positions also could be eliminated for even more savings.
Other council members argued the auditors used an improper analysis because they didn't follow the procedures for assessing courts as outlined by the National Center for State Courts.
“That report is bogus,” said Councilman C. T. Martin. “The auditor doesn’t know anything about how courts operate."
Ward, however, said that the center's procedures deal with Superior Courts that handle civil cases and the most serious criminal cases. Superior Courts, Ward said, have little in common with municipal courts, which mainly handle violations of local law such as parking tickets. Edwards said the city auditor's report reached similar findings as studies by the Franklin administration, which recommended in 2010 reducing the number of judges to seven.
"City Council now has in its possession two independent analyses that show that the court is overstaffed," Edwards wrote in a letter to Councilwoman Yolanda Adrean before the council vote last week. "At a time when the City Council is considering significant reductions in employee health-care and pension benefits, employee layoffs and reductions in critical services like park maintenance, it is unconscionable that certain members of City Council are unwilling to make cuts."
Martin denounced what he called Edwards and the Franklin administration's war on the courts. "They set out to kill the court," he said. “I am a supporter of the court getting back to where they were because they are doing a great job at restoring the municipal court as an efficient, effective court.”
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