Superior Court asks board to continue settlement-focused Division 7 services, seeks one-time auxiliary funding

Superior Court leaders told the Coconino County Board of Supervisors the county’s experiment with an extra courtroom pipeline known as Division 7 helped clear a pandemic backlog and that keeping its settlement and arbitration services running will be more cost-effective than restoring a full new trial division.

“Only about 2% of our cases go to trial,” Presiding Judge Ted Reed said. “What happens to the 98% is availability of attorneys and timely settlement and alternative dispute resolution.”

Reed and Court Administrator Sharon Yates appeared for the court’s budget presentation during the county’s multi-day budget hearings and asked supervisors to fund a targeted set of services rather than a fully staffed new judicial division. The court’s request — dubbed the Auxiliary Judicial Services (AJS) proposal — would preserve settlement conferences, civil arbitrations and a flexible pool of judicial coverage while redeploying salary savings from two unused court-reporter positions to offset part of the cost.

Why it matters: Reed and Yates emphasized that clearing older felony and civil dockets produces savings elsewhere in the system and improves access to timely justice. Reed used the recovery court as an example: six recent graduates in that program potentially avoided long prison terms that would have cost the community hundreds of thousands of dollars; Reed contrasted the recovery-court cost (about $6,000 per participant per year, as presented) with estimated incarceration costs of roughly $28,000–$29,000 per inmate per year.

What the court proposed and what management recommended: The court initially sought continuation of a stand-alone Division 7 trial judge. County staff and the court worked to find a lower-cost alternative. The court and county manager agreed to recommend a one-year, one-time Auxiliary Judicial Services allocation to fund expanded settlement conferences, short-term judicial coverage (senior commissioners or pro tem judges as needed) and operational costs. The figures presented by the court/county manager were: AJS funding request $200,000 (one-time), with a net general-fund impact reported as approximately $42,600 after redeploying two court reporter salary savings; an additional recurring request for computer and network fees (roughly $26,000); and the department’s 5% CPI adjustment (stated as roughly $36,600 for the department).

Operational details and trade-offs: Reed said the Division 7 model had been used to increase settlement conferences, civil arbitrations and mediation capacity by adding retired or senior judicial officers (Judge Campagnolo and Judge Slayton were cited by name as contributors). Yates and Reed warned that reducing court security or court-reporter capacity would curtail the county’s ability to run multiple jury trials or to guarantee required grand jury proceedings. Yates said two unfilled court-reporter salary lines were being targeted to fund settlement services, while court administration and Flagstaff Justice Court jointly covered one court-security position temporarily with special-revenue funds.

Courtroom capacity and jury trials: Reed and Yates described how court security staffing affects trial capacity. With six security officers the courthouse can conduct multiple jury trials across divisions; if the court dropped to five officers, Reed said it could effectively run only one jury trial at a time across superior- and justice-court rooms. They reported that while jury numbers had returned toward pre-pandemic levels (roughly a dozen jury trials a year), the court had seen big returns from settlement conferences and arbitrations that resolved many more cases than additional jury capacity would.

Technology and court reporters: Both Reed and Yates described a state- and nationwide decline in certified court reporters, forcing courts to rely on digital recording. They said the court is piloting technology that produces draft transcripts from recordings and highlighted risk: if a courtroom’s recording system fails during a long jury trial, the trial risks reversal on appeal. As a result, the court asked supervisors to consider modest recurring funding for networking/computer fees and to allow redeployment of existing reporter salary funds to support settlement and transcript technologies.

Treatment courts and budget context: Reed framed treatment and specialty courts (recovery court, mental-health court, veterans court, family treatment court) as part of “effective justice” that reduces incarceration costs and improves public safety. Yates noted the court had received a federal Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) grant for a mental-health coordinator and emphasized that multiple funding streams — grants, county support and partner contributions such as from Flagstaff Justice Court — are woven into the courts’ budgets.

Where the issue stands: County management recommended the Auxiliary Judicial Services option and the other items listed above as part of its budget package. That recommendation will be considered by the board during final budget deliberations; no final board vote on those specific items was recorded during this session.

Ending: Reed closed by describing plans for continued outreach (a restitution court, expanded internship programs, and a “justice bus” to bring services to remote communities), and he thanked the board for earlier ARPA funding that helped the courts reduce the backlog. Yates thanked staff and outlined next steps for monitoring any effect on backlog and trial capacity.

Speakers quoted in this article may be reached in the meeting transcript; quotes are verbatim from the session as presented to the board.