County required to pay deputy juvenile officer's salary

St. Louis Daily Record & St. Louis Countian, Jan 16, 2004 by Emily Umbright

A decision handed down by the Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday reflects the effects of a financially strapped state on its judicial system.

In its reversed opinion, the high court authorized a bi-county circuit court to tap into funding from one of its jurisdictional counties to pay for the salary of its deputy juvenile officer.

According to the brief submitted by the officer's attorney, Steven A. Fritz, referrals to the Cooper County Juvenile Office jumped from 241 cases in 1993 to 504 in 1999 and 464 in 2000. Additionally, referrals of children under the age of 12 escalated from 26 incidents in 1995 to 95 incidents in 2000.

If the chief deputy juvenile officer of Cooper County were the sole staff person, she would be responsible for all intake and assessment of all referrals, the conducting of all informal adjustment conferences, supervision of all status offenders in adjudication and non adjudication, all violating juveniles, and the preparation for appearances at all court hearings, Fritz wrote.

Prior to June 30, 2003, the Division of Youth Services in the Department of Social Services supplied a grant to the circuit court that provided the officer's salary. With the grant set to expire at the end of June, the circuit court requested the county cover the remaining six-month expense in its annual budget forecast.

The court also included a requested $5,000 for attorney's fees in the event the matter went to court.

Cooper County denied the court's request for the budget to incorporate the officer's salary and attorney's fees and submitted a review of its decision to the Judicial Finance Commission, which oversees submitted judiciary budgets. The commission also rejected the budget submission under Section 211.393 RSMo 2000.

The section designates juvenile court employees as state employees, rather than county employees; however, it excludes positions funded in whole or in part by a public or private grant, such as the position of the officer in this case.

According to Tuesday's opinion, under Section 211.393.6, when a circuit court submits a budget proposal, it must include specifications regarding how the funds will be spent in the juvenile court.

The section permits funding for `continuation of services funded by public grants or subsidy.' According to the high court, in performing the job, the officer, in essence, performed a service.

The county contended Section 211.393.6 ran contrary to the purposes of Section 211.393 in that the intent of the section was to relieve counties of personal services expenditures within the juvenile court's budget while providing the same amount of funding for the court's operations.

The County believes that under H.B. 971, `services' that may be continued at County expense do not include `personal services,' Judge Duane Benton wrote in the opinion. The relevant provisions of H.B. 971 do not confine `services' to non-personal services.

The section in House Bill 971 states that in order to provide its services to local children and families, it may recruit and retain qualified professionals to provide vital services. . . . An enhanced partnership between the state and the counties shall be established.

The county pointed out a termination provision within the section eliminating juvenile court employees added to the payroll after Dec. 31, 1997.

However, the Supreme Court denied applicability of this provision due to Section 211.393's subsections permitting the continuation of a position funded by a grant.

The `termination' provision must be construed together with subsections 211.393.1(2) and 211.393.6, Benton explained, alluding to City of Washington vs. Warren County. These subsections specifically authorize the continuation of services funded by public grants, such as those of the officer here.

The Supreme Court also found the circuit court's request for attorney's fees reasonable, finding the county denied an identical 2001 request for juvenile court funding brought by the circuit court in the event that the court did not receive grant funding.

Here, the JFC deemed the request unreasonable because having ruled on an identical question of law involving these identical parties . . . Respondent knew or should have known the outcome in the instant case, Benton wrote. The JFC, however, overlooks the nature of court budgets - they may differ from year to year. What is reasonable one year may not be reasonable another year.

Due to the uncertainty of court budgets, the Supreme Court prohibited the application of res judicata and collateral estoppel between separate fiscal years. Moreover, it found that the JFC's reliance on a 2001 budget decision to make a 2003 budget decision was erroneous.

Therefore, the JFC erred in denying attorney's fees outright, Benton concluded. Ruling as a matter of law, the JFC did not determine the reasonableness of the specific elements.

Fritz and William F. McCullah III, Cooper County attorney, were unavailable for comment.

All members of the Missouri Supreme Court concurred with Benton's opinion.