On Thursday Council received an update from the Courthouse operations from Judge Hoover, Judge Coates, and Clerk Zibritosky about the current expectations for the overall year at the courthouse and current caseload trends. While the courthouse operations are starting to rise, overall it is still expected that the courthouse will be down 30% in 2021. The Court stated that they are currently down 4 staff members, they are planning to replace 2 of those positions due to staffing changes, however, overall, the Court is still trying to remain down staff and costs for 2021 and is hopeful that they will not need the re-appropriated money from Council. The Clerk has not made any cuts in 2021 related to the shortfall and do not feel they can make any cuts to address the $1M to $1.2M shortfall still estimated. Council did approve the legislation I proposed to re-appropriate money back to the Courthouse operations. Council will continue to evaluate the operations of Courthouse throughout the year so we can remain vigilant on the costs that will impact our city related to such. This also made legislation requested by Clerk Zibritosky to hire legal counsel unnecessary so Council did vote this down.
Council approved legislation to accept money from the American Rescue Plan Act, because of the size of our City we will receive these funds through the state, and we would expect that it will come sometime between June and July. The federal government has just recently put out guidelines on the use of these funds, however, there is still a lot of questions about how those are interpreted. We are hopeful that by the time the City receives our share of these funds that we will have a better understanding of how they can be used.
Council also discussed legislation requested by Ms. Shaw to support the US Senate bill titled the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act 2021. Ms. Shaw requested this legislation to mirror legislation that was passed in the City of Akron. Ms. Shaw did not discuss this legislation with any of the administration of our city, specifically our Mayor and Police Chief, who oversee our police operations in the City. Neither the Mayor nor the Police Chief support this legislation so after introducing it, Ms. Shaw requested to table it. I do not support the legislation requested by Ms. Shaw because I do not believe changes in police reform should come as a mandate from the federal level, I believe necessary reform should come from the state and local level.
Our next Council meeting will be May 27, 2021 with committee start times to be announced closer to meeting date.