CHARLESTON – The 2021-22 budget request for the state Supreme Court is less than the one for the Fiscal Year 2017.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Evan Jenkins presented the budget request February 19 to the House Finance Committee.
“The Supreme Court is committed to operating a judicial system that is fiscally responsible, transparent, and accountable,” Jenkins said during the hearing. “I am putting a special emphasis during my year as chief justice to engage the public on the important work we do to guarantee a judicial system that is fair, accessible, and without bias. A civil society depends on it.”
The budget request of $139.4 million is $2.36 million less than the budget for fiscal year 2017 and less than 3 percent of total state general revenue spending.
Jenkins said the Fiscal Year 2022 request will operate the entire West Virginia judicial branch of government, including 1,520 employees in circuit courts, family courts, magistrate courts, and probation offices in every county. Personal services and employee benefits account for $115,126,000, or 83 percent, of the budget. A little over $20 million, or 15 percent, goes to current operating expenses.
The largest amount of the budget, 24 percent, goes to operating circuit courts. Another 23 percent is to operate magistrate courts and 21.4 percent is for probation. Only 5.4 percent of the request is to fund the operations of the Supreme Court, including the Clerk’s Office, Office of Counsel, the Justices’ staff, and the employees in the Administrative Office.
“We have 300 probation officers who supervise about 10,000 people on probation," Jenkins said. "They protect the public by ensuring probationers are following the terms of their probation. Drug testing, home visits, pre-sentencing reports, and supervising hundreds of high-risk probationers such as sex offenders, is all in a day’s work for these front line, public safety employees,”
During the hearing, Jenkins also highlighted the work of the West Virginia treatment courts, which are supervised by drug court judges and staffed by probation officers. There are 29 Adult Drug Courts covering 46 counties and 15 Juvenile Drug Courts covering 17 counties. Wood, Harrison, Raleigh, Logan, and Ohio counties have Veterans Treatment Courts within their Adult Drug Courts.
West Virginia has eight family treatment courts covering nine counties, and, so far, 152 individuals have been assessed, 101 accepted, and 129 children have or are being served. Family Treatment Courts currently serve Boone, Braxton, Calhoun, Logan, McDowell, Nicholas, Ohio, Randolph and Roane counties. Three more family treatment courts are expected to open this year in Fayette, Wetzel and Wood counties.
The treatment courts as well as magistrate, family and circuit courts and the Supreme Court have continued to operate during the COVID pandemic.
Jenkins said shutting down courts during the pandemic was not an option. The Supreme Court authorized the purchase of laptops and computer equipment for “COVID Kits” that could be dispatched to county courthouses when there was a COVID outbreak to help employees operate remotely. The court also authorized the installation of all the network connections, equipment, and video links to the regional jails and the purchase of cell phones with a common platform and secure video apps for every magistrate in the state.
“This enabled them to conduct remote proceedings, issue arrest warrants, and set bond -- just to mention a few of their everyday tasks -- in a safe, secure way,” Jenkins said.