ATLANTA,None — Atlanta city internal auditor Leslie Ward and Atlanta Municipal Court Chief Judge Crystal Gaines don't seem to agree on the verdict rendered in an audit about the court.
At stake, potentially, are millions of dollars and the jobs of some of the judges.
"We spent many months on the audit," said Ward. "I think the data we have is indisputable."
"The method that they used is flawed," said Judge Gaines to Channel 2's Mark Winne, who inquired about whether the audit shows some of the judges could work a lot harder.
"It shows that they don't know how to measure whether judges need to work harder or not," Gaines said.
The judge's comments should not come as a surprise considering a letter included in the audit report and appearing to carry the signatures of nine judges, the city solicitor and interim director of the municipal court public defender's office charged the audit "unjustifiably tarnishes the reputation of this great City and its judiciary."
Says the audit: "While the number of cases heard in municipal court remained flat over the last three fiscal years, the city increased the court's fiscal year 2011 budget to raise the number of courtrooms with scheduled cases from seven per day to nine. Based on our analysis, we estimate the court could handle its existing workload with four courtrooms; cutting the number of judges and court staff could save $2.3 million annually."
Questioned by Winne about that last sentence, Gaines replied, "We believe if that was put into effect, it would actually cause major issues with the court as far as overcrowding, our customer service."
Said the audit elsewhere: "The city could eliminate four judges and 19 municipal court employees to align courtroom staffing with workload."
It also reported case load in the last six months of fiscal year 2010 required judges to spend only 28 percent of their time on the bench.
"There were some mistakes in what she estimated as our bench time," responded Judge Gaines in her Channel 2 Action News interview.
Ward countered that she does not believe there were mistakes in the data about how often judges were on the bench. She said her staff went to great lengths to drill deep. At one point, two of them, she said, spent two to three weeks watching video of court proceedings.
To read the entire audit report, click here.
WSBTV
