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Show MSL Court Case Load May Bring Higher Salaries By MARK D. MICKELSEN NORTH SALT LAKE An increase in North Salt Lake's court caseload may be the ticket to wage hikes for the city's prosecutor pro-secutor and justice of the peace, according to the city manager. ALTHOUGH he said he'll leave the decision deci-sion for an increase in wages up to the city council. City Manager Collin Wood Tuesday Tues-day pinpointed what he called "three alternatives" alter-natives" the council might consider. The first alternative is to leave the court system as it is, refusing to grant the two judicial figures any substantial wage hike. THE SECOND alternative is to adopt a request by Justice David Payne to increase the JOP's salary from $350 to $450 per month, and the prosecutor's salary from $200 to $400 per month. The third alternative would allow the council to grant only a partial wage increase. in-crease. AT A RECENT council meeting, Justice Payne and Prosecutor Ted Kanell complained com-plained of an increasing caseload and asked for wage increases and the addition of a full-time court clerk. Justice Payne told the city council North Salt Lake is losing court revenues because the prosecutor is not able to handle all the cases in the time allotted. The two suggested the addition of a full-time full-time clerk to help reduce the court workload work-load and allow for more judicial revenues. A YEAR ago, when Justice Payne was "pushing" for the JOP appointment. City Manager Wood said the lawyer mentioned that money "was of no importance." "But evidently he's had a change of heart," Mr. Wood added. THE CITY manager predicted that the council will likely approve some sort of change in the judicial system based on the escalating caseload. "I don't think the council will leave it (court situation) at status sta-tus quo." "The council feels the judge has done a really good job," Mr. Wood continued, noting, however, that the increased caseload case-load will likely be the deciding factor in whether or not the council approves a raise for the two judicial figures. MR. WOOD had some difficulty pinpointing pin-pointing why the substantial increase in cases. "All we can go by is how much revenue is generated. The more revenue, the higher the caseload." he said. Surprisingly, he said, "revenues have not gone up significantly in the last three years." THE ADDITION of a full-time court clerk will not change the court operation as drastically as expected, he continued. He said the clerk, up until recently, has been assigned other duties. "But now we've made the adjustment she will be working solely with the court." The change from part to full-time is forcing the city to increase the court budget from approximately approxi-mately $2500 to $10,000. "IT W ILL increase significantly the judicial judi-cial budget," Mr. Wood explained. The city council is expected to make a decision on the proposed wage increases sometime this week. |