Committee to recommend annual reappointments for judicial commissioners

The Coffee County legislative committee voted on May 21 to forward to the full commission a recommendation from law enforcement that judicial commissioners be appointed to one-year terms rather than the de facto four-year practice, Chairman Watkins said.

The change was presented as a way to build an evaluation and supervisory process into the role. "The way TCA states it's they can be done no more than for 4 years," Chairman Watkins said during the discussion, noting the committee's intent was to codify a shorter reappointment cadence. Missy, who attended from law enforcement, said the County Technical Assistance Service recommended yearly reappointments: "CTAS as actually recommended yearly."

Committee members said the shorter term would allow for a formal evaluation and provide an opportunity not to reappoint commissioners who were not performing adequately, without altering the unique employment status of judicial commissioners. "If they weren't performing adequately then they could not just be reappointed," Chairman Watkins said, explaining that they would "drop off and then a new person would be hired for that next year cycle." The committee discussed adding supervisory reporting — including counts of warrants, search warrants and training updates — to a revised job description.

Chairman Watkins moved to forward the law-enforcement recommendation to the full commission and, if approved by the full commission, to incorporate the annual reappointment approach into the judicial commissioner job description. The motion was seconded and carried by voice vote. The committee did not provide a formal roll-call tally in the transcript; members recorded verbal "Aye" votes.