Some council members say the move is to enable the current judge to receive full-time retirement pay. Judge Rupert Ruppert is in the final three years of his six-year term and is age-limited. Those councilmen also say the judge is using the rationale of establishing a drug court docket only to justify the new designation and would prefer to have a county-wide drug court. Ruppert insists the costs would be minimum to go full-time and has offered to pay a portion of the costs for a secretary to assist in the proposed drug court.
Councilmen Jason Faulkner, Matt Wilcher and Scott Lipps voted against the resolution in support to amend the Ohio Revised Code and elevate the judgeship to full time status. They prefer hiring part-time magistrates to help with the caseload a drug court would add.
Lipps said the court would be one of the smallest, in terms of population service area.
Of Ohio’s 216 municipal courts, only 14 are part-time judgeships, according to 2013 statistics from the Ohio Supreme Court. Of those 14 courts, Franklin Municipal ranks third in new cases started in 2013 behind Montgomery County Municipal and Mason Municipal. Montgomery County has four part-time judges, while Mason and Franklin have one. In terms of population, based on the 2010 Census, Franklin ranked eighth with 28,076 residents.Montgomery County topped the list, followed by Mason, and Lebanon ranked sixth. The smallest municipal court is in Oakwood serving a population of 9,202.
Of the 37 county courts, there were three part-time judges for the Butler County Area Courts and two part-time judges for the Warren County Court.
“This is not right financially for the citizens of Franklin,” Lipps said. “Franklin can’t afford a full-time judge.”
Lipps said he’d prefer to have the city be a partner in a countywide drug court instead of adding a specialized docket to the Franklin court’s operation.
Mayor Dennis Centers said he believes the full-time judgeship is necessary to battle the heroin epidemic and other drug-related crime.
“I truly believe this will be a positive program and I believe the judge truly wants this in his heart,” Centers said. “If the drug court is not effective, we can eliminate it.”
As for concerns about the retirement pay issue, Centers said, “All of the court staff is full-time. I think it’s kind of silly not to have a full-time judge.”
Ruppert said Monday’s vote was the first step in a multi-step process in getting state approval and keep moving forward.
He said the Supreme Court wants to see the effort receive a resolution of support from the Warren County Commission before taking the matter to the Ohio General Assembly. The commissioner’s office has scheduled a work session for 9 a.m. Jan. 13.
He also said there is no minimum population requirement to establish a full-time judgeship. Ruppert would also have to retire from private practice in order to become a full-time judge. He has been on the bench for the past nine years.
“The increase in retirement pay after going full-time will only be a small percentage of my retirement,” Ruppert said. “I won’t recover what I am giving up from my private practice.”
City officials said the costs could range from $46,000 to as much as $60,000 or more in the first five years.
If the commissioners approve the request, the matter still requires the approval of the Ohio General Assembly and the Ohio Supreme Court.
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