Increased costs for psychological evaluations and interpreters in the court system are among the reasons the clerk of courts proposed a significant hike in the department’s 2025 budget.
Ethan Schmidt told the Shawano County Public Safety Committee on July 10 most of the $93,000 is from salaries and health insurance, as well as evaluations and interpreters needed for Branch I, Branch II and the register in probate.
“If defense counsel enters a plea of not guilty by mental disease or insanity, we then have to do an eval, and per state statute, we have to pay for those,” he said.
If an evaluation is complete, the defendant is found to have a mental disease and is then sentenced to a mental health institution, he or she can request a reevaluation each year.
“They can every year petition the court for reevaluation, and then the court has to follow through with an eval,” Schmidt said. “So, some of these costs are recurring every year, because we have individuals that ask for the eval. Some of it is the very early stages of the proceedings for that case.”
Schmidt is asking for $50,000 for evaluation fees for 2025, a 20% hike from the $40,000 budgeted for 2024. He noted the county has already spent $26,000 through May 31.
The other, and bigger expense, is interpreter fees.
“We have a huge Spanish-speaking population here in Shawano County,” Schmidt said. “The amount of Spanish-speaking cases that we have every year is going up.”
He said most interpreters charge a two-hour minimum. To help keep costs down, officials have started scheduling cases needing an interpreter back to back. That way, when the hearings only last 15 minutes or so, they can get through several cases for the two-hour minimum charge.
Schmidt said interpreters are private contractors, but the prices must be approved by the state.
“One of the things that we’ll have to watch — the interpreters that we use right now aren’t doing it, but other counties have mentioned — because these counties are going to this time-block system, they’re (the interpreters) are charging a two-hour minimum per case, not per time coming to the county,” he said.
Wisconsin is one of few states with court interpreters but no guidelines for charging.
“It’s kind of a free-for-all,” Schmidt said.
Also, there is a lack of interpreters, and it is difficult to become state-certified for interpreting in the court system, he noted.
Schmidt said costs are also saved if they can have interpreters appear via Zoom, as the county then doesn’t have to pay travel costs.
He said the state clerks association is lobbying lawmakers for an increase in the state reimbursement for interpreters, a figure that has not changed in 20 years.
Committee members questioned why Menominee County wasn’t charged more for the services provided by Shawano County.
Schmidt first said the district attorney’s office (separate from the clerk of courts budget) is required by the state to provide services to both counties, and the DA’s office uses a percentage of expenses to be reimbursed for its costs.
The clerk of courts office is not required to provide services to Menominee County and has chosen to be reimbursed at a flat dollar amount that totals $28,000.
Schmidt said the counties have a two-year agreement for the shared services, and an escalation clause is built into the agreement.
“What we provide for Menominee County, other than the jury services on the court system side, they could have an employee do on their own,” Schmidt said.
kpasson@newmedia-wi.com
