7 District Courts targeted for closing

The Maine judicial department’s latest proposal to meet a budget cut of more than $4 million includes closing seven District Courts effective April 1.

Proposed court closings are in Lincoln, Van Buren, Madawaska, Newport, Livermore Falls, Bridgton and Bar Harbor.

State Court Administrator Dana Baggett said the latest proposal was submitted to the State Budget Office last week. He said the proposed District Court closings would mean staff reductions, but the number of people affected had not been determined Monday.

Baggett said that Millinocket and Caribou courts were not on this list of courts to be closed, as they were included in the first proposal. This proposal does include closing the Lincoln court.

The state court administrator said that Millinocket was taken off the list for closing because the town had offered the court space for $1 for 18 months. In December, the Town Council voted unanimously to offer its facility virtually rent-free from Jan. 1, 1992, through June 1993. The District Court pays $36,013.92 a year in rent to Millinocket for use of nearly the entire third floor of the municipal building.

Earlier, District Courts in Caribou, Madawaska and Van Buren were proposed for closing. Baggett said Caribou was taken off the list because of long travel distances.

“At least for this exercise we thought we would simply try to close Madawaska and Van Buren and leave Caribou open until the (new) Presque Isle Court is up (opened) and we have a chance to assess the situation,” he said.

He said the proposal to close the courts requires a vote from the full Legislature.

Baggett said the opening of the new centralized violations bureau in Lewiston, which handles traffic infractions from around the state, would reduce District Court caseloads. “Traffic infractions are on the order of 40 percent of District Court load and even higher in some locations,” he said.

Police officers who write traffic tickets have a schedule of fines and will inform violators of their fines at the time the ticket is issued. The ticket, with payment, will be sent to the bureau, thereby bypassing court appearances. Traffic violators will appear in court only to contest a ticket.

The judicial department plan also calls for cutting all overtime, adjustments in personnel services, not using contract temporary workers, reducing rents at some District Court locations and at the Administrative Office of the Courts, consolidating the State Court library system, transferring the payment responsibility of all witness fees to county district attorneys who schedule appearance of witnesses, and reducing grand jury requirements and resultant fees for jurors.

Identified as possible reductions but opposed by the judicial department were cutting judicial personnel and reducing the contribution to the Judicial Retirement Fund.