close
close

Association-anemone

Bite-sized brilliance in every update

    • Wauwatosa, municipal court judge conflicted on staffing
    asane

    Wauwatosa, municipal court judge conflicted on staffing

    Online Niel Posted on

    Wauwatosa’s municipal court judge says her court is understaffed and, for the second year in a row, is asking the city for more help.

    Judge Krista LaFave has written letters and spoken at meetings over the past month asking city officials to amend the $78 million executive budget to accommodate her request for a part-time employee. She says the municipal court needs a staff member to bring back its team of two people dedicated exclusively to the court.

    City administrators and the mayor said during public hearings that the court’s part-time position can be filled by current city employees who share the work, as provided in the 2024 budget. They say the court did not use the help of three employees office assistants suggested as a solution to LaFave’s previous request.

    LaFave, however, says he’s been trying to stick to the city’s staffing model for the past year “and it’s not working.”

    Wauwatosa Municipal Court handles citations for ordinance violations, which have increased over the past year, LaFave said.

    In addition, the full-time court administrator notified LaFave that she plans to retire in the new year.

    “My biggest fear is that there’s a vacancy and I don’t have the staff to keep the courts running every week,” LaFave told the Journal Sentinel.

    The situation also led some Arians to question in public hearings how much the executive branch should dictate the judiciary’s decision-making.

    The Common Council will vote to adopt the executive budget at its 6:30 p.m. meeting on November 19.

    What is the hiring challenge in Wauwatosa Municipal Court, according to the judge?

    LaFave was elected Wauwatosa Municipal Court Judge in 2022succeeding her predecessor who held the title for 28 years. When she was first elected, the staff included a full-time court administrator and one part-time employee, she said.

    After the part-time employee left in August 2023, LaFave requested through the 2024 executive budget to fill the void with one person. Instead, city ​​officials decided to fill the position with three people from other departments who would each work around 10 hours a week at the courthouse.

    About a year later, LaFave says having more people in the part-time position isn’t working. Only one of the staff members, an office assistant in the clerk’s office, has worked with the court in the past year, LaFave told the Journal Sentinel.

    Over the past month, LaFave has sent letters and spoken at public meetings imploring city staff and officials to grant his request for a staff member to work exclusively for the court.

    “We kept the court moving,” LaFave told the Journal Sentinel. “But I have real concerns about the ability to do that in the future without having the two main people (the court administrator and a part-time clerk).”

    In an Oct. 17 letter to the mayor and administrators, LaFave wrote that having multiple people share the part-time position would not allow adequate staffing to cover the weekly court hours and prevent the current full-time employee from and can take sick days. and vacation time. Having multiple employees with access to court records also poses a security risk, she wrote.

    LaFave also believes that dividing employees into multiple departments can overburden workers, causing them to be pulled in different directions.

    “I don’t think it’s fair to them either,” LaFave told the Journal Sentinel. “They should be able to focus on the work they were probably interviewed for and hired to do.”

    City administrators and the mayor say the staffing needs should be covered with current city staff time

    City leaders say it’s best to continue to share the work with office assistants already working in the city.

    Mayor Dennis McBride and City Administrator Jim Archambo written into the 2025 executive budget that a part-time municipal court staff member cannot be justified, “especially in a year when the city is eliminating three police positions and not funding a firefighter position.”

    When LaFave made his request for a part-time employee at an Oct. 15 meeting of the Financial Affairs Committee, McBride and city administrators said the court did not adequately use the staff provided by the city.

    “If the board were to approve this request, it would send a message to all department heads,” McBride said at the committee meeting. “The message would be: don’t cooperate with the city administration.”

    Officials also said the court failed to train the office assistant, which LaFave said was not true during a Nov. 6 public hearing on the budget.

    A part-time staff member would organize the staff, help find a youth diversion program

    The part-time person would organize the hiring schedule, prepare files, process judges’ orders and, like a court administrator, talk to people on the phone to handle things like parking ticket appeals, LaFave said.

    The part-time staff member also could help the judge find a replacement for the counseling services the Social Development Commission offered the court free of charge before it closed in April.

    SDC he suddenly closed his doors and fired his entire staff in April after it emerged he had misallocated over $100,000 in taxpayer funds.

    The closing of that agency left the Wauwatosa Municipal Court with no alternatives to detention to recommend for juveniles.

    The staff challenge highlights the mix between the judicial and executive branches of government, an alderman says

    Under Wisconsin statute, the hiring, firing, hours, and job responsibilities of court personnel when working during assigned court hours are under the judge’s authority.

    Municipal courts can differ greatly from each other in how they are staffed and how often court is held, according to Morgan Young, director of the Wisconsin Office of Judicial Education.

    The statute also provides that the court shall be maintained at the expense of the municipality. LaFave said during public comment at a Nov. 6 public hearing that she believes the city administration’s staffing plan does not meet that statutory requirement.

    Ald. Joe Makhlouf said at the Oct. 15 Financial Affairs Committee meeting that while there may have been missteps by both the city and the court, the judicial and executive branches should be separated in local government. He said the judge should have his own jurisdiction based on how the court works.

    At a later meeting of the Financial Affairs Committee on Oct. 29, Makhlouf proposed an amendment to fund the requested staff position with $38,000, which would come primarily from employee professional development funds. The motion failed on a 4-4 tie vote.

    Online Niel
    View all posts

    You Might Also Like