LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – The Michigan House will consider new legislation that could dramatically affect how trial courts are funded. 

How are courts funded now?

Currently, courts are partially funded by fees collected from defendants, but the legislation has a sunset for May 1, 2024. 

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State Representative Sarah Lightner (R-Springport) introduced legislation in early January that would extend the sunset until December 31, 2026, and recently received a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday. 

At the same committee meeting, the legislators voted to tie bar newly introduced legislation from early March, sponsored by State Representative Kelly Breen (D-Novi), which would change how the funding was distributed among the courts. 

What would a new act require?

Under Rep. Breen’s HB 5534, a new act would create the Trial Court Funding Act of 2024 and would require the State Court Administrative Office (SCAO) to “analyze certain trial court costs and revenue sources and develop legislative proposals to change trial court funding.” 

As part of the bill, SCAO would have to work with the Department of Treasury to “develop and propose a statewide system to distribute court revenue to each funding unit by determining the difference between the operation cost and maintenance effort for each court.” 

House Judiciary passes new legislation.

On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee passed Chair Kelly Breen’s HB 5534 with recommendation and tie barred it to Rep. Lightner’s bill, HB 5392. 

Under Rep. Breen’s bill, funding would be overseen by the State Court Administrative Office, under the “direction and supervision of the Supreme Court.” 

SCAO “shall develop and provide to each trial court a schedule of the appropriate portion of the court’s operation costs that may be attributed to an individual’s case under current law,” the bill reads. “The assessment of operational costs to an individual must be as close as practical to the actual cost of an average case of the individual’s criminal case type and must not include additional costs based on the length of time required for the case or related to the exercise of a constitutional right.”

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Rep. Breen defended the bill because it would gather data needed to support recommendations from the State Court Administrative Office to the legislature. 

“That’s what this bill is doing, is gathering the data so that we can then later on down the road, the legislature, can then act on those recommendations with the data in hand and give further direction to SCAO.” 

She clarified with Trevor VanDyke, the SCAO representative who testified in support of the two bills at the House Judiciary Committee Meeting. 

“So the final authority for how courts will be funded is still vested with the legislature after we gather all of the appropriate information?”

Rep. Breen, before calling for a vote, shared how long the legislature has had to consider funding recommendations. 

“We’ve been kicking the can down the road for about ten years,” she said during the hearing. “With no accountability measures for anyone, this is finally adding some accountability so that we can get this done in accordance with the Supreme Court decisions.” 

Minority Leader Hall sends letter to Representative Breen. 

In the letter, Representative Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) called Rep. Breen’s tiebarring of her bill to Rep. Lightner’s an “unnecessary risk to the continuation of a vital function of public safety and the rule of law in our state.” 

“HB 5534 is a rushed attempt at fixing the court funding issue and could have several unintended consequences,” the letter said. “Chief among them is the loss of resources for law enforcement officers that are aided by this revenue. Sadly and ironically, your bill would divert that money to jurisdictions that are more likely to waive court costs for convicted criminals.” 

State Representative Graham Filler (R-St Johns), Former House Judiciary Chair, shared with Michigan News Source some of his concerns about the legislation, expressing his full support for Rep. Lightner’s bill. 

“Because we need to fund our courts, and we need justice to be served, and we can’t have people sitting randomly in jails, and we need to be paying our local employees,” he said in the interview. 

Rep. Filler explained that he would be open to discussing HB 5534 further in the future. 

“I’m open to conversations about it,” he said, “I kind of want to learn a little more about what trial court funding in the state of Michigan before signing off on those recommendations in that bill, but I definitely see them as different bills.” 

According to Rep. Filler, the timeliness of the process from which HB 5534 was introduced on March 5, to its passage from the Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. 

“It is uncommon for that to happen unless there is a clear timely nature to bills,” he said in the interview. 

He said it was paramount that the sunset extension bill be passed within the next month. 

“If we don’t pass his trial court funding extension bill, the hit to local courts is pretty massive,” he said, adding, “We’re talking in the tens and tens of millions of dollars.” 

What are others saying?

State Representative Andrew Fink (R-Hillsdale), current Minority Vice Chair of the Judiciary Committee, shared his thoughts on the bills. 

“What’s the rush?” he said to Michigan News Source. “We obviously need to extend the sunset on court cost assessments, but I don’t understand why we have to move so quickly to adopt a bill to direct SCAO to make a plan.”

During the Judiciary Committee meeting he expressed his concern that a future legislature might simply feel compelled to adopt the SCAO recommendations.

“We can keep working with SCAO and others to ensure we have adequate trial court funding moving forward without tie-barring the legislation to a separate and completely non-controversial bill,” he added. 

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Both HB 5534 and HB 5392 passed from committee and head to the Michigan House for further consideration.