I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer. I’ve certainly enjoyed getting back together with family and friends and being outside for community events. I’m still being very careful, but things are feeling more and more like they did before the pandemic.
Earlier this summer we received some very good news about our budget. The legislature approved a 4.7 percent increase in our appropriation for this fiscal year, beginning July 1. With that increased funding, the supreme court approved a budget with four additional district associate judges and an additional 17 clerk of court staff positions for our rural counties.
The additional clerk positions will help us reach our goal to have at least 2.5 full-time equivalent (FTE) clerks assigned to each clerk’s office in the state while we are open to the public. There are many reasons this is important; safety, fiscal responsibility, and accessibility to the public with full-time coverage and full service. With our current staffing, a vacation or illness frequently forces a clerk to work alone in one of our 32 offices without adequate staffing. Hopefully, with the additional staff, that will no longer happen.
We also needed the additional court staff positions to handle our current workload. According to a workload formula created by the National Center for State Courts (NCSC), the new positions will allow us to timely process our current overall work. I am happy we have the additional resources we need to meet the needs of Iowans statewide.
The new clerk staff in Districts 1, 2, 4, and 8 may also participate in the Distributive Work Processing Pilot Programs now in process. Those districts have identified many efficiencies that are possible by sharing work responsibilities across county lines. Clerks in Audubon and Pottawattamie counties, for example, are now sharing similar work responsibilities in areas such as case processing, jury management, and financial duties. As our district courts implement this program statewide, we will be able to more efficiently utilize our staff to better serve our communities.
We also worked with the NCSC to determine how many judges we need to effectively handle the state’s current caseload. The NCSC’s judgeship formula indicates we need 10 additional district court judge positions and 20 additional district associate judge positions. Only the legislature can create new judge positions and they listened when we described the need. The four new district associate judge positions added this year are part of the legislature’s plan to create four new district court judge positions for the next five consecutive years. The budget also includes the support staff for the districts where the new judges will be located. In addition, the legislature approved a three percent salary increase for all of our judicial officers, the first salary increase since FY 20 and only the fourth increase in the last twelve years.
As we transition to a post-pandemic world, I feel very confident that we will have the resources we need to better serve the people in our communities. It is a very good feeling, like getting back together with family and friends for an outdoor concert.
Thank you for all you do for our courts and the citizens of Iowa.
John Goerdt, Interim State Court Administrator