Savannah council reviews plan to study a city-run municipal court, raises cost and safety questions

City staff presented an initial review on April 10 about whether Savannah should transition away from the county Recorder's Court toward a Savannah Municipal Court, and councilmembers asked staff to return with more detailed cost, jurisdictional and staffing information.

The presentation, led by Joe Schierhouse, acting chief of information and public affairs, laid out how Recorder's Court and municipal courts currently divide cases in Chatham County and showed 2024 figures that described roughly 33,000 cases processed annually, with about 22,000 in Savannah and 11,000 in unincorporated Chatham County. "For 2024, the City of Savannah paid $3,200,000 for the administration of Recorder's Court, and the county paid $1.2 million for a total of about $4.5 million," Schierhouse said. He also told the council that fines historically covered court expenses but that the general fund subsidized the city’s Recorder's Court by roughly $1,100,000 last year.

Why it matters: council members framed the question as both operational and political. A municipal court, they were told, could align the city’s enforcement and code-compliance work under local jurisdiction and, over time, reduce duplicated staffing needs. But the transition would require start-up costs, new staff arrangements and decisions about which case types the new court would hear.

Several council members highlighted public-safety and equity trade-offs. Alderman Albert Curtis Pertie (6th District), who led the workshop’s opening prayer and spoke at length during discussion, warned that Recorder's Court handles high-volume matters—including DUI and domestic-violence-related preliminary hearings—and that moving to a municipal court could shift some cases to other courts. "I will not vote for removing ourselves from a court," Pertie said, emphasizing concerns about liability, transport and loss of county-level protections for detained people.

Other members asked whether moving to a municipal court would remove the public’s current ability to vote for Recorder's Court judges, a point staff said would likely require legislative changes. The city attorney noted that some duties, such as assignments for domestic-violence matters, could be negotiated with superior-court judges after a municipal court were established, but there is no guarantee those judges would agree.

Council members also pressed staff on administrative issues inside Recorder's Court that drive concern: the use of pro tem judges to cover dockets (staff cited pro tem coverage above 20% in some accounts), frequent continuances that delay cases, and whether adding permanent judges or other process changes could address backlog and fairness concerns without creating a new court. "We have to exhaust every opportunity to improve what we have," one council member said, urging alternatives such as management and staffing changes before structural overhaul.

Equity and revenue questions surfaced repeatedly. One council member said she sees disproportionate representation of Black residents in court dockets and asked whether a system that depends on fines disproportionately burdens marginalized communities. Staff acknowledged that judicial decisions—such as favoring community service over fines—affect revenue and that the city covers any shortfall because court operations are a necessary government function.

Staff clarified some operational numbers: about 30 non-judge court staff are currently funded in the Recorder's Court arrangement; per-diem and detention costs have been affected by past local-option sales tax agreements, and staff said the city does not currently pay a per-diem for inmates because earlier LOST negotiations covered that cost through 2030.

What's next: staff said they would take council feedback and return with follow-up information, including more granular cost estimates for standing up a municipal court, case-age and continuance data, details on pro tem usage, and the status of consultations with county partners, prosecutors and the sheriff's office. The council did not vote on any measure and adjourned the workshop until 2 p.m.

The discussion left two clear lines for future work: a targeted review of operational fixes inside Recorder's Court (staffing, docket management, pro tem oversight) and a more detailed, legislatively informed feasibility analysis of a Savannah Municipal Court, including startup costs and potential changes to how judges would be selected.