Courthouse a key to county budget

The 2015 budget increased to help pay for renovations to the Lamoille County Courthouse, a $6.7 million project funded by $5.2 million in state money and other sources.

The increase had an impact on Stowe, whose taxpayers foot half the county budget. The nine other Lamoille County towns split the other half.

While the courthouse is being renovated, court operations are in temporary quarters in the former Plaza Hotel in Morristown.

“I feel better having a lower budget, knowing that concerns are out there,” said Joel Page, one of the county’s two side judges. “It is related, to some extent, to the courthouse construction project.”

The overall county budget proposal is $503,000, down from $546,000 this year, mainly because the state government will pay $67,000 to share space in the new courthouse.

The Stowe Select Board began talks Monday on the 2016 municipal budget, and Town Manager Charles Safford said, at first blush, the lower county budget looks good. But, he said, it’s prudent to wait and see if the utility costs projected for a newly renovated building turn out to be accurate.

“You learn about a new building as you go,” Safford said.

Each of Vermont’s county budgets is managed by the county’s side judges, a judicial position unique to the Green Mountain State. The judges — elected officials who may or may not have legal experience — sit, along with a presiding judge, in family and civil court hearings. With enough training, side judges can preside by themselves in small claims cases, uncontested divorces, and traffic court.

The side judges are also the administrators of the county government, responsible for their county’s property. They appoint the county clerk and treasurer, develop the county budget, set the county tax rate and administer all duties required by law. They are paid both by the state and the towns that allocate funds to the county budget.

Presiding judges and full-time court staff members are paid by the state. The county budget is a tally of what it costs to pay the side judges, county clerk and maintenance crew, and to keep the courthouse and sheriff’s department going all year.

Page said the county has memorandum of understanding “in the works” with the state to share the costs of running the courthouse, since the state will use a new wing of the renovated building. If that contract doesn’t pan out, or if the estimates on utility costs are off target, the $67,000 state share might change, and the county may need to revisit its budget.

“It will take a couple of years of utility expenses, a couple winters,” Page said. “If it turns out the (state deal) doesn’t finalize as expected, that number could immediately be off.”

The towns’ share of the proposed county budget is $423,837, and all 10 Lamoille County towns are being asked to contribute, although it’s far from an even split. In Vermont, towns allocate money to their counties based on their property wealth. Since Stowe has half the property value of the county, Stowe foots half the county government’s budget, $211,000. The town has just under 20 percent of the county’s population.

Stowe has more than $2.4 billion worth of property value, followed distantly by Morristown, $583 million, and Cambridge, $519 million. Tiny Belvidere is asked to contribute $2,940 to the budget; Stowe’s assessment is almost 100 times that.

“We do get good participation from our local governments,” said Karen Bradley, the county’s other side judge, and some counties don’t have as much local control as the Lamoille County court, clerks and sheriff’s office employees enjoy.

Local court

Renovations are going well at the 1911 courthouse and county employees hope to move back in mid-May, Page said.

The entire courthouse staff moved into the Plaza Hotel in Morristown in June. Building owner Howard Manosh had the place remodeled to accommodate all the court employees, with hotel rooms turning into lawyer/client rooms, jury room — each still keeping the bathroom, complete with bathtub — and a pair of courtrooms.

Bradley said in many ways the hotel is better than the old courthouse had been for more than a decade, more spacious and more private for the jurors. The old place once had a mistrial because a defendant was walked into the courthouse right past the potential jurors.

In addition to gaining 8,000 square feet of space, the courthouse will have new heating and cooling systems — “it’s a very intelligent system,” said Bradley — and the windows will all be of this century.

Page said he doesn’t expect any “drastic changes” in the way the courthouse operates, but is keeping an eye on state officials who want to tighten public building security. The shooting of a case worker outside the Department for Children and Families offices in Barre this summer, and the alleged sexual assault of a woman in a Burlington courthouse this fall, has the state putting pressure on counties and towns, Page said. He said once the courthouse is finished, it will have gone from one of the most dire in the state to one of the best.

“I hope that there’s not a shift at the state level,” Page said. “In some ways (Lamoille County) is going to be an example of how security should be handled in other courthouses in the state.”