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Sunday, August 15, 2010
Ind. Courts - "Judges use fund left by Spencer to improve courthouse"
Christina M. Wright reports today in the Anderson Herald Bulletin, in a story that begins:
Madison County Judge Fredrick Spencer left behind a goose-egg of a fund that has allowed the courthouse to upgrade and renovate in an environment of continual budget cuts across the county and nation.“One of the pleasant surprises we had when I came into the Circuit Court was that Judge Spencer had left behind a sizable fund saved up from probation user fees,” said Judge Rudolph Pyle. “They have to be used to improve the courts.”
Pyle said the fund, in excess of $200,000, has been used to install wireless on the third and fourth floors of the courthouse, install needed carpeting and a plasma screen in his courtroom, and turn the library into a problem-solving courtroom to help with the grant.
The fund, Pyle said, is a sum of fees that offenders on probation must pay to the courts.
Spencer said he had rarely used the fund over the years, supplementing a probation officer’s salary once. He didn’t comment on how it’s been spent since he left the bench.
“I intentionally didn’t spend money I didn’t need to spend,” he said. “I’m a frugal guy.”
After a dissection of the wordy Indiana statute, Board of Accounts deputy state examiner Paul Joyce agreed that the probation fees could be used for courthouse renovations. However, a technical word — “supplement” — in the statute may cause a slight problem, he said.
“It’s not there to replace,” Joyce said of the fund. “It’s to supplement. It should already be a line-item thing; it shouldn’t be something new.”
Posted by Marcia Oddi on August 15, 2010 12:55 PM
Posted to Indiana Courts