Tarrant leaders are considering courts reorg because some work only ’10 hours’ a week
A group of 11 people from Tarrant County’s judicial system will study plans to reorganize the county courts.
Tarrant County commissioners voted 4-0 on Tuesday to form the group after considering a proposal that would have eliminated the criminal court administrator position and replace it with a director who would report to county administrator Chandler Merritt.
The decision came after commissioners met with their attorneys. That followed a two-hour public comment session in which judges and lawyers complained that they did not get a chance to weigh in on the proposal before it was placed on the agenda.
County Judge Tim O’Hare said during Tuesday’s meeting that reorganization was an “option” in response to financial mismanagement.
“We don’t want to see people get paid for 40 hours of work when they’re really working 10 hours,” O’Hare said. “We don’t want to see mismanagement of dollars where somebody is being paid more than their salary is supposed to be.”
The county predicted that the proposal to eliminate the position of criminal courts administrator would save $174,000. The county intends to cut the position by Oct. 1. Criminal court administrator Gregory Shugart has held the position for 12 years and reports to the judges.
The public comments featured over 25 speakers, 11 of whom were judges, opposing the reorganization.
Democratic commissioner Alisa Simmons said the goal of the group would be to eliminate “fraud, waste and abuse in the justice system” as well as lowering the jail population.
“We need them to hear more cases, hear the right kinds of cases that will get that jail population lowered,” Simmons said in an interview with the Star-Telegram after the meeting. “That’s my primary concern.”
Simmons’ Republican counterpart, Manny Ramirez, echoed the need for accountability in the courts.
“We can always go back and perfect systems, and I think this working group will be charged with doing just that with making sure that we’ve got accountability measures in place for every single level of government in Tarrant County,” Ramirez told reporters Tuesday.
Ramirez said he was open to a reorganization that wouldn’t place the criminal courts under the county’s purview.
Before the public comments, O’Hare downplayed the severity of the proposed reorganization.
“The last thing that I want to do, and I would say I do speak for all these people here, the last thing we want to do is go take over something we legally don’t have the authority to do,” O’Hare said.
Simmons said during the meeting that she was angered by the lack of transparency and frustrated by the way the process was handled.
Simmons said she learned about the proposal two weeks ago, but Merritt acknowledged that it had been in discussion for six to eight weeks. He said he could have reached out to judges and others affected by the change.
Ramirez told reporters he wasn’t informed of the potential reorganization until two weeks ago.
“We could have called more stakeholders to discuss this, absolutely,” Merritt said while being grilled by Simmons
Simmons alerted judges to the change last week, and said she would no longer tolerate Merritt and county leadership leaving her uninformed.
“This seems to continue to be a pattern with you and me, I’m not going to tolerate it anymore,” Simmons said. “I’m not putting up with that bull---- anymore, Chandler.”
A spokesperson said after the meeting that Merritt was unavailable for an interview.
At the close of the meeting, Democratic commissioner Roy Brooks told the judges who spoke that if they went to be apart of the solution, “now is the time.”
Republican commissioner Garry Fickes was not in attendance.
This story was originally published April 2, 2024 at 2:22 PM.
