Crunching the numbers for next year’s budget in Montgomery Superior Court, Judge Heather Barajas didn’t make a lot of changes to her wish list.
But as the number of criminal cases filed in her courtroom continues to grow, Barajas said she’d likely need to come back and ask for more money at some point in 2021.
“For now, we’re holding the line on our budget,” said Barajas, who begins her second term on the bench in January.
“But conceivably,” she added, “the way things are going and with the increase of the criminal case load in particular, there may be multiple entities who have to ask for increased funds just because of the trajectory of the criminal case load.”
Criminal case filings in Superior Court jumped more than 66% between 2015 and 2019, according to a Journal Review analysis of state data.
A total of 1,382 cases, including those already pending or transferred, went before the court in 2019, up from 829 four years earlier.
So far this year, nearly 900 more criminal cases have been added to the docket, provisional figures show.
While criminal caseloads in Montgomery County’s two other courts are also on the rise, though at comparatively slower rates, the trend is more noticeable in Superior Court because of the increase in drug-related cases. (Circuit Court Judge Harry Siamas and Superior Court 2 Judge Peggy Lohorn, who is retiring at the end of her term in December, said their budget requests are the same or virtually unchanged from 2020. Department heads present their budget requests to the Montgomery County Council during public workshops at 6 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday at the Montgomery County Jail.)
Superior Court’s adopted budget was nearly $202,800 in 2020.
Participation in the Drug Court program averages about 30 active clients, up from 13 when Barajas began presiding in 2015. An afternoon session has been added and another probation officer was hired due to the extra clients.
The court has not requested additional funding for the program next year, “but that is something that could happen,” Barajas said. Funding comes from the general fund.
Often overlapping with drug-related cases are mental health issues, which also contribute to the growing case log, meaning more money has to be spent on competency evaluations. Barajas estimates that at least 80% of the criminal defendants have a history of mental illness.
“We have good service providers here, but we need more,” she said.
To help balance the caseload, beginning this year adult guardianship cases were transferred to Superior Court 2, which took the probate docket except for adoptions. The courts can ask the state for further caseload adjustments every other year.
But if cases continue trending upward, Barajas said, the county could eventually be forced to request a magistrate, who would pick up certain cases usually heard by one of the three judges.
“The magistrate’s salary would be paid by the state, but then … potentially, you have another courtroom that you’re going to need and potentially more court staff to handle the caseload,” she said.
