Juvenile court asks Shelby County for $849,189 to expand magistrate capacity and raise magistrate pay

Judge Tarek Sugarman, juvenile court judge, told the Shelby County Budget & Finance Committee that his office needs additional personnel and a restructured funding approach to reduce case backlogs and meet statutory deadlines. He asked the county to fund a 30% replacement for five core magistrates (moving $255,000 of salary costs from a DHS grant to the court’s general personnel budget), approve two new magistrates (estimated $466,444) and authorize a salary increase package for core magistrates (about $127,745.75) — a combined request of $849,189.75.

Sugarman said the proposed budget changes would expand capacity for dependency-and-neglect (DNN) dockets, custody and visitation hearings, truancy-related school advocacy dockets, and preliminary motions. He noted fiscal-year 2025 volumes "over 4,000 DNN dependent and neglect cases" and said the court currently cannot meet statutory timelines for adjudication and dispositional hearings because of staffing and scheduling constraints. "The bottom line is currently our match rates are limited to a narrow set of eligible cases... This shifts and ensures that we aren't restricted... and allows us to meet more community needs," Sugarman said.

Stephanie Hill, the court’s chief administrative officer, told commissioners that child-welfare work comprises about 75% of the court’s docket and that the system is handling "over 500 child welfare cases per week," reinforcing the need for added capacity. Hill explained the DHS grant currently ties 30% of five core magistrates’ salaries to child-support–only work and that pulling those magistrates onto the court personnel budget would free them to hear a broader range of child-welfare matters.

Commissioners asked for comparative salary data from other Tennessee counties (Davidson/Nashville, Hamilton and Knox) to review competitiveness; Sugarman said the court has requested those figures and will provide them. The judge also detailed operational pressures: displacement from the Adams facility and limited transport capacity have compressed dockets, forcing some hearings to be stopped mid-presentation to comply with statutory detention timelines.

The presentation ended with a pledge to provide requested comparative figures and additional data on weekly case volumes; no formal vote occurred on the request during the committee meeting. The next procedural steps listed by staff included supplying the comparative salary data and fiscal details requested by commissioners.