Courts cut out 10 more days

The statewide unpaid leave, which will reduce the judicial branch's operating expenses by $4.1 million this fiscal year, were made in response to Iowa's "serious revenue shortfall," a press release from the Iowa Supreme Court stated.

All Iowa's courts and clerk of courts offices will be closed for the 10 days, which are spread out from December 2009 to June 2010.

"We designed the court closure schedule to minimize the impact of closures on the public as much as possible," said Iowa's State Court Administrator David Boyd.

Still, the unpaid leave days will disrupt court and cut back times of public access, Boyd said.

In Le Mars, Plymouth County Clerk of Courts Charlene Petersen said these cuts add pressure on the court employees.

"We'll have less days to do the same amount of work as we've always done. The arrests don't stop," Petersen said. "You just do what you can do."

The 10 scheduled days the courts and clerks offices are closed include:

* Friday, Dec. 4

* Thursday, Dec. 24

* Thursday, Dec. 31

* Friday, Jan. 15

* Monday, Feb. 15

* Friday, March 12

* Friday, March 26

* Friday, April 2

* Friday, May 28

* Friday, June 18

The days for court closures were selected based on being typically the least busy day of the week in most courthouses, Boyd explained.

Each day the court system is closed means pushing the courts' calendar back.

"We're already scheduling the simple things, small claims and hearings, in January," Petersen said. "In some counties it's a lot further out than that, but for us that's kind of a ways away."

Iowa's court employees already took seven days of unpaid leave in a similar order in March.

Clerk of courts' offices across the state were then closed at 2:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays rather than 4:30 p.m. to allow staff to deal with the backlog of work after days of leave.

"I'm assuming later this week we'll hear that they're going to be closing the clerks offices down at 2:30 p.m. a couple days a week so we can catch up on the workload for being gone," Petersen said. "That's what they've done in the past."

Having three unpaid leave days in December will hurt during the holiday season, Petersen said.

"But we all still have our jobs," she said.

The state hasn't announced any personnel cuts at this point.

"That might be coming," Petersen said.

The Iowa Supreme Court plans to announce further cuts this week, according to the press release.

Petersen said she didn't know what those cuts would be but all factors seemed to point to cutting back in the area of personnel.

"I don't know what else it could be, because most of our budget is personnel, so I assume it will mean layoffs for some or cutback in employment time," Petersen said. "They might bring some people down from full time to half time -- I'm not sure at this state. I think we'll know more later in the week."