STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Deep cuts to the state’s judiciary budget will cost Staten Island two judges.
And the county bar association fears there will be even more fallout here in the coming months.
“To lose these two judges, who are so productive and well-liked by everyone is a travesty,” said Sheila McGinn, president of the Richmond County Bar Association. “We have attorneys and staff who will be greatly affected because we will be operating with two less on the bench on Staten Island. This is a gap, and it creates a vacuum.”
Staten Island will lose Justice Joseph J. Maltese, who sits on the Appellate Court in Brooklyn, and Justice Orlando Marrazzo Jr., who sits in the Civil Term of state Supreme Court, St. George, after Dec. 31.
They will not be replaced.
That means Staten Island will only have one judge on the bench in the Appellate Division, Second Department – Justice William F. Mastro.
Maltese and Marrazzo are among 46 elected judges throughout the state who will not be certified or re-certified due to the cuts.
Only three judges requesting certification or re-certification have been approved, said Lucian Chalfen, a spokesman for the state Office of Court Administration.
In New York, the mandatory retirement age for judges is 70.
However, elected state Supreme Court judges can apply for a two-year certification to stay on the bench. They can do it three times and, if approved, serve through the year they turn 76.
Earlier this week, New York’s Chief Administrative Judge Lawrence K. Marks said the state had slashed the judiciary budget by 10%, or about $300 million.
To cut costs, Marks said the state court system was enacting “a range of painful measures.”
They include a strict hiring freeze, rejecting most judges' request for certification and re-certification, eliminating all non-personal services spending, and deferring substantial payments owed to the next fiscal year.
But Marks warned there could be darker days ahead.
“At this point, we have been able to avoid employee layoffs, but there is no telling what the coming months may bring,” he said in a memorandum. “One thing is increasingly apparent — the next fiscal year will be as difficult, if not more difficult, than this year.”
Denying the applications for certification and re-certification will save more than $55 million over the next two years, said Marks.
“This will far better help enable the court system to avoid layoffs, or greatly reduce the number of layoffs should that extreme measure become unavoidable,” Mark wrote.
McGinn fears the worst.
Additional casualties could include judicial hearing officers, court attorneys and other court staff, she said.
All of which Staten Island can ill afford to lose. The borough is already “underrepresented” in the judicial system, said McGinn.
“Our elected officials need to be mindful of this,” she said. “Don’t think this won’t trickle down. Every judge has court staff and personnel.”
McGinn said the bar association is willing to sit down with elected officials and state court officials to devise a solution that spares the borough further pain.
“Driving a stake into the heart of the Staten Island judicial system is not the answer,” she said.
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