Judge Elkins asked the Howard County Council to reallocate unspent Unified Courts Fund fees so juvenile court and probation can use remaining monies from a prior allocation; the council approved the additional appropriation as part of the meeting’s appropriations business.

Elkins told the council the number of defendants in Superior Court 1 fell from about 128 to 41 in recent months and said the average number of jail days had dropped dramatically, from more than 500 days to roughly 53.46 days in her court. She credited collaborative scheduling and changes in how level‑6 felonies are routed as key management steps.

“We put the level sixes back in the courts” rather than into magistrate dockets, Elkins said, and that change helped reduce backlog. She described coordinated work among judges, prosecutors and public defenders to move cases.

Elkins also raised concerns about probation practices and recidivism, saying a large share of local probation cases fail: “We have a 98 percent fail rate in Howard County,” she said, characterizing that outcome as evidence the current approach is creating repeat offenders rather than preventing reoffending. She urged the council and stakeholders to consider evidence‑based practices in probation and to examine how probation affects overall court throughput.

The council approved the Unified Courts appropriation (the request reallocated about $43,000 placed into the Unified Courts Fund the prior year), along with other additional appropriations, by motion and voice vote. Elkins said the money would allow juvenile court and probation offices to expend previously budgeted items that were unused in 2024.

Elkins provided context on caseload volume, saying the typical number of felony cases filed in a given year is between 290 and 320, and that reducing backlog required reassigning certain matters and increasing coordination across court staff.

The judge’s remarks were delivered during the appropriations portion of the council meeting and tied funding clarifications to operational reforms in case routing and probation oversight.