House Judiciary Committee member Jay DeBoyer today said planned changes for how some Michigan courts are funded are short-sighted and deemphasize continued mismanagement at the local level. 

The State Court Administrative Office (SCAO) this week presented the House Judiciary Committee and Senate Committee on Civil Rights, Judiciary, and Public Safety with an alternative funding proposal for trial courts in Michigan counties. The proposal would see the state Treasury take every dollar generated from county trial courts and redistribute them back to counties according to their needs. Through the changes, SCAO would also decide how many employees each local court would be allowed to have, which would force many court employees out of work.

The new Trial Court Fund is based around SCAO’s stance that some county trial courts have inadequate funding and, as a result, use broad sentencing discretion to impose steeper penalties and fees to ultimately make up for deficits.

DeBoyer blasted that interpretation, saying the proposed changes refuse to delve into root causes of poorly run county court systems and that well-run courts shouldn’t see their funding impacted. He also noted that the fund’s creation would increase state budget obligations and cause sustainability headaches going forward, after the Legislature just spent months hammering out what a budget plan would look like for the current fiscal year.

“This would require good actors who do not run a budget deficit to continually subsidize irresponsible actors,” said DeBoyer, of Clay Township. “There are a handful of counties in our state that struggle with their court operations costs due to a variety of factors, including rampant mismanagement, ineffective collection methods, and other things. Counties like ones I represent should not be forced to pay for other counties who do not have their acts together and aren’t operating effectively.

“Robbing Peter to pay Paul is not a plan, and it is a gateway to use this same approach with other funding shortfalls.”

DeBoyer pointed to several groups that are opposed to the recommendations, including the Michigan Association of Counties, the Michigan Townships Association, the Michigan Municipal League, the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, the Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police, and the Michigan Sheriffs Association.

“There has been a ton of pushback on these proposed changes, and I’m hopeful we can come together in the Legislature to develop common-sense, sustainable solutions for how these costs are addressed,” DeBoyer said. “The proposed changes that our committees heard were not solutions, nor are they sustainable.”