Legal News

Committee of 70 Calls for Freezing Quarter Sessions Budget

By Brian Harris

By Amaris Elliott-Engel
Of the Legal Staff

Ahead of the Clerk of Quarter Sessions budget hearing in the Philadelphia City Council next week, the government watchdog group Committee of Seventy has called for the city to halt funding for the office until it "is absolutely clear that all potential savings have been identified" by the First Judicial District in making sure the work of the office can be done with more efficiency, with fewer people and for a lower cost.

The functions and duties of the office were absorbed by the First Judicial District at the start of the month because of an order issued by Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille. Joseph Evers, the prothonotary in charge of the court's civil cases and civil filing fees, has been put in charge of leading an office that has been criticized for dysfunction in its management of criminal records and criminal remittances.

The functions of the office are now in the FJD's hands, but the Clerk of Quarter Sessions' role as an independently elected row office is still up in the air after Vivian Miller's retirement March 31. No City Council resolution has been introduced to change the clerk's post as an elective office.

The legal status of the clerk's employees, who are civil servants but would lose that status by court employment, has resulted in a "behinds-the-scenes wrestling match," Committee of Seventy's Zack Stalberg said in a press release.

Stalberg also criticized Mayor Michael A. Nutter and City Council for not stating explicitly whether or not they support abolishing the office, observing that Miller continues to serve as a Democratic ward leader.

"It's up to Council to demonstrate its leadership by doing away with the Clerk of Quarter Sessions' office before anyone else starts jockeying for the seat in 2011," Stalberg said. "Council and the mayor should show the same urgency for abolishing the CASS as they have with the Board of Revision of Taxes."

Full post as published by The Legal Intelligencer Blog on April 15, 2010 (boomark / email).