Photo by Sarah Finnegan.
Vestavia Hills Municipal Court employees work on a Tuesday evening, when court appearances occur.Note: This photo has been altered to obscure personal information to protect the identity of individuals.
With growth comes new challenges, but those challenges don’t always become apparent until things get out of control. That was the case with the city’s municipal court.
From minor criminal offenses to traffic tickets, the number of cases the magistrates are dealing with has grown significantly as the city has grown in area and population.
City Clerk Rebecca Leavings said the number of cases coming through Vestavia’s court system has skyrocketed recently, some years seeing upwards of 200 percent growth.
“It’s one of those times when you don’t realize it until it’s happened,” Leavings said.
Pair that with the retirement of the magistrate supervisor — a role that was already overwhelmed — and Leavings said it was clear something needed to be done.
Leavings said that while screening applicants to replace the supervisor, she and City Manager Jeff Downes determined it would be better to restructure the court system’s personnel.
“It is such an important position that it was just determined to reorganize just to make it stronger,” she said.
Instead of a magistrate supervisor, which currently manages the magistrates and administration of the courts and reports to Leavings, the city hopes to bring on a municipal court administrator, which would function like any other department head, Leavings said.
Downes said the new position would be focused on the administrative side to increase efficiency, but also provide a supervisor for the magistrates to ensure that the city isn’t falling into a liability issue.
“You take the volume of work, and you take the changing environment of municipal courts in Alabama, and it represents an opportunity for the city to professionalize that organization in a better manner,” he said, referring to the statewide shift in philosophy about how indigent populations are treated by the courts.
The only issue, Leavings and Downes pointed out, is that this kind of position didn’t exist within the Jefferson County Personnel Board’s framework, so the process to get the new position approved and get a list of possible candidates has been lengthy.
Over the next few months, Downes said, the staff should be able to present a final candidate and fill the position, which was already funded in the 2018 fiscal year budget approved in October.
