Carroll County chief magistrate asks commissioners to convert part‑time intake role to full time

Chief Magistrate Judge Kirsten Phillips asked the Carroll County Board of Commissioners to approve converting a part‑time intake position in magistrate court to a full‑time clerk to address increasing civil and dispossessory case filings.

Phillips said she brought the request after the county budget was already drafted and that she had discussed funding with finance; she told commissioners that the county currently budgets about $25,000 for the part‑time role and that the full‑time position would require roughly $47,000 including benefits. Phillips said she personally forgoes the county supplement allotted to a full‑time chief magistrate, which reduces the county cost and leaves about $3,100 remaining in her estimates that she expects to cover within her existing budget.

Phillips presented filing statistics from 2019 through May (printout dated May 12) showing an upward trend in civil filings and dispossessory cases after the 2020–21 COVID dip. She said civil filings have outpaced dispossessories in recent years and that the intake clerk would split duties between front‑desk intake and civil clerk responsibilities so the court could keep up and avoid backlog as the office moves into the new courthouse later this year or early next year.

A commissioner asked whether the full‑time estimate included benefits and whether Phillips had compared staffing levels and caseloads to similar counties. Phillips said her estimate included benefits and that she had used Paulding County as an informal benchmark — Paulding has a far larger caseload and proportionally more staff — but she did not provide a formal per‑clerk caseload comparison in the meeting. Phillips said the proposed hire would result in roughly "two and a half" positions handling civil and dispossessory work (one existing full‑time clerk, one full‑time clerk, and the newly converted position doing mixed duties).

No final vote was taken in the work session. Chairman Morgan said the conversion request has been incorporated into the county budget and will be on the agenda for the Board’s vote at the regular meeting the following Tuesday; Phillips said she would make herself available to answer further questions before that vote.

The request, the supporting case‑filing printouts and Phillips’s funding explanation were the substantive items the board received; commissioners asked for any additional benchmarking or detail they wished to see before taking a formal vote.