Where Does the Money to Run the Courts Come From?
Funding for the local courts has historically been a joint responsibility of the state and the individual counties. The state pays the salaries of all judicial officers, and the personnel and operating costs of the appellate court systems, including Supreme Court Committees and the AOPC. As of January 1, 2000, the state became responsible for paying for the salaries and benefits of district court administrators.
Cuts in state funding have necessarily put pressure on the individual counties to make up for the shortfall. Many counties are increasingly unable to do so and have, furthermore, slashed court subsidies as part of cost- cutting efforts in preparing their own budgets. This has resulted in widespread frustration, predictions that the effective administration of justice will be threatened and, in some instances, lawsuits. In 1987 and again in 1996, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that the state is responsible for funding the Unified Judicial System as created in Article V of the Pennsylvania Constitution, ratified by voters in 1968.
Following the 1996 Supreme Court decision, former Supreme Court Justice Frank J. Montemuro, Jr. was appointed special master to prepare recommendations to the Court as to how statewide funding should be implemented. Justice Montemuro's Report recommended four phases for transferring functions from the county level to the state. To date, Phase I has been implemented: 178 court administrators across the Commonwealth have been moved from the counties to the state's payroll.
While some progress has been made in streamlining and consolidating the administrative functions of the court system, more is needed. For instance, the consolidation of the information technology personnel is a natural component of the courts' efforts to modernize and make uniform the courts' computer systems. Similarly, centralization and unification of certain personnel functions would enable the court system to operate in a more cohesive fashion and would also allow the courts to standardize personnel practices.
Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts has publicly endorsed in its Memorandum on Statewide Funding of Local Courts the concept of statewide funding of local courts as recommended in the 1988 report of the Beck Commission. However, PMC has not taken any position on how that funding should come to pass (for example, through a court-ordered mandate or by the legislature acting on its own), nor has PMC advocated for or against any specific component of a statewide funding scheme.
