Senator Thomas recommends targeted judicial hires, salary bumps and IT priorities; committee to review long sheet

At a meeting of the Appropriations - Education and Environment Division, Senator Thomas presented a set of recommendations to the committee to fund select Judicial Branch positions, authorize specific salary increases and prioritize several court IT projects, including an AI tool for clerk filings.

The recommendations, presented by Senator Thomas, would fund all five requested Judicial Branch IT positions; cover the first three full-time equivalent (FTE) position requests listed under District Court and convert a half-time juvenile court assistant to full time; and convert a half-time administrative assistant at the Supreme Court to full time while funding a full-time equivalent staff attorney in the State Court Administrative Office. Senator Thomas said the package would not include funding for other items listed on the provided priority list and that it would not include any new initiatives at this time.

Why it matters: the proposals would shift staffing and pay within the state court system and direct the committee's near-term budget focus to a limited set of personnel and technology investments rather than broad equity adjustments or additional new initiatives.

Details of staffing and pay proposals

Senator Thomas recommended funding the five IT positions identified on the Judicial Branch FTE Priority List and the specific District Court and Supreme Court conversions described above. On salaries, Thomas proposed percentage increases below the Judicial Branch request: 9% for the chief justice, 8.5% for Supreme Court justices and an initial 5.5% for presiding district judges. After committee discussion about how those percentages would compare with an alternative "3 and 3" approach, Thomas proposed increasing the district presiding judge figure to 6% as a starting point for the package. The committee discussed (but did not approve in a formal vote) that these percentages would be the only increases applied at this stage, rather than layering an additional 3% annual increase on top of them.

Equity adjustments and new initiatives

Committee members agreed not to include equity adjustments at this first stage, though members acknowledged those could be reconsidered later in the budget process. Senator Thomas said the group would not fund items listed under "new initiatives" in the provided materials.

IT priorities and technology notes

The committee recommendation included ongoing software maintenance items (the A-column items on the Judicial Branch IT project priority list) and specifically recommended funding an AI software tool for clerk filings. Senator Thomas described the AI filing tool as an efficiency measure, saying, "we think this is a great opportunity to hopefully require less people doing this, but if nothing else, make their jobs easier and more efficient," and suggested it might produce cost savings but that a net savings was not guaranteed. The committee did not recommend migrating the District Court case-management system to cloud hosting during this biennium; members said that migration could be reconsidered if deemed essential later.

Process and next steps

The committee asked staff to assemble the recommended items on a consolidated long spreadsheet so members could see the full package and make comparative adjustments at a later meeting. The chair described the current set of recommendations as a "starting point" and said the committee would revisit the numbers after seeing the long sheet; no formal votes were taken on the recommendations in this session. The committee planned to meet again (the chair indicated "sometime Thursday") to continue work and to prepare materials for subsequent committee sessions.

No formal motion or recorded vote was made during the excerpted discussion. The recommendations presented by Senator Thomas will be reflected on a long-sheet budget view for committee review at the next meeting.