Cobb County Superior Court Clerk Jay Stephenson is questioning whether the county’s court reporting employees should be paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in state-set fees -- on top of their salaries and benefits -- for providing transcripts.
A joint investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and WSB-TV found that in the previous 12 months, for example, one Cobb court reporter assigned to the chief magistrate received more than $92,000 in transcript fees, in addition to a $57,220 salary.
“It may be legal, but from my viewpoint, I can’t think of anything that makes it okay, not in today’s economy,” said Stephenson, who was elected to his position in 1985.
The fees are legal, set by state statute and apply to court reporters statewide. However, not all counties choose to put court reporters on thepayroll.
In Cobb, the costs are exceeding court budgets and becoming unaffordable in these economic times, Stephenson said.
The Cobb County paid an extra $472,123 in transcript fees to its 24 court reporters from June 2009 to June 25, 2010. Salaries for those employees, which average $47,615, totaled $1,142,777 during the same time period.
Fulton and DeKalb counties also have court reporters on their payrolls.
In 2009, Fulton's 25 court reporters earned between $48,854 and $57,174 each and the county paid them about $1 million more for superior court transcript fees.
The way court reporters are paid depends on the county, said Marla Moore, director of the Administrative Office of the Georgia courts and secretary of the state court reporting board.
That board sets a minimum daily rate that court reporters should be paid, along with page rates they charge for transcripts. Cost for an original transcript and up to two copies is $3.78 a page. Extra copies are $1.51 a page. Additional fees can be charged for expedited transcripts.
By and large across the state, Moore said, court reporters are seen as private contractors and not salary-earning county employees.
In Gwinnett County, court reporters are considered contractors. Each superior court and state court judge has his or her own official court reporter and some judges have back-up court reporters. In 2009, Gwinnett spent about $1.9 million for court reporters in both courts. Of that amount, about $926,000 was for transcripts. So far this year, the county has spent about $777,000 for court reporters, including $358,000 for transcripts, according to information from the deputy court administrator.
Cobb County has not considered changing its court reporters from full-time employees to contract laborers.
"We can budget certain positions, but we don't really have say over who [the courts] hire," said Cobb Commissioner Bob Ott. "I think the way to approach this would be not going after positions, but telling them that they need to cut expenses as everyone has done in the past."
Stephenson took his concerns to Cobb’s judges after his office got a $436 bill in October when his office lost a transcript and requested a copy from the court reporter who covered the jury trial.
To prevent future losses, Stephenson began scanning transcripts filed in his office, which permitted the district attorney access to the documents without paying for them.
"That didn’t make the [court reporters] happy, and the next thing I knew we were receiving bills from court reporters,” Stephenson said. His office paid less than $1,000 in transcript fees during the last fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, but his office does not have a transcript budget.
Cobb's far greater expense for transcripts comes in the district attorney's office budget. In fiscal 2009, which ended in September, $64,800 was budgeted for the line item and the office spent $64,999.97. The fiscal 2010 budgeted transcript amount is the same as last year. As of June 23, the office had spent $47,857.55 on transcript fees with three months left in the fiscal year.
Stephenson took his complaints to superior court judges in May. The judges requested a legal opinion from the county attorney, who concluded the fees were appropriate.
"The fees earned by the court reporters from both public and private entities are the property of the court reporters even when such fees are earned for work performed on county time," county attorney Dorothy Bishop said in a May 24 e-mail response.
The fee debate in Cobb has surfaced before, when the county’s court reporters retained a lawyer and threatened to sue District Attorney Pat Head in 2001 for circumventing the fee process. Instead of paying the transcript fees for an appeals case, Head would take copies of the original transcript filed in Stephenson’s office.
Head then agreed to pay the fees and the case never came to a hearing.
In May, Head promised the judges he would not get involved again in the fee complaints until his department ran out of its budgeted transcript money.
“At first I had said I wasn’t going to buy any more transcripts and if they wanted to try and sue me again that was fine,” Head said.
Renee Weatherford, listed as Cobb County’s senior court reporter, declined comment for this story. Others did not return calls for comment.
But court reporters elsewhere said the complaints in Cobb are unwarranted.
Cost-of-living and work-related expenses, including a $125 annual re-certification fee and $10,000 stenographer's machine and supplies paid for by the court reporters, must be accounted for, said Dennis Bull, an officer on the board of the Georgia Certified Court Reporters Association.
“If the attorneys have problems, they should take this issue up with the legislature. This is not the forum for which this should be resolved,” said Bull, who is also a freelance court reporter and co-owner of a court reporting firm in Roswell. “Honestly, I don’t have much sympathy for them.”
The first place to take a complaint is to the judicial council committee, Moore said. Then all parties, including the state legislature, would consider whether changes need to be made. No fee complaints have been brought to the judicial council, Moore said.
Nor have complaints surfaced at the government watchdog group Common Cause, said its Georgia executive director Bill Bozarth. But the issue does "raise eyebrows," he said.
“We probably need to find a way to get rid of these kinds of practices in jurisdictions across the state,” Bozarth said. “If they should be paid more, pay them more if necessary to end these practices.”
By the numbers
Cobb: court reporters are full-time salaried employees
Number of court reporters: 24
Salary: $36, 504 to $58,143
Transcript costs: $472,123 paid for court reporters assigned to all courts, June 2009-June 25, 2010.
- Superior Court does not have a transcript budget;
- $64,999 paid for fiscal 2009 district attorney transcript fees; budgeted $64,800. Fiscal 2010: $47,857 as of June 23; budgeted: $64,800
Dekalb: court reporters are full-time salaried employees
Number of court reporters: 10
Salary: $32,472 to $52,776
Transcript costs: $623,000 paid for 2009 superior court reporters; budgeted: $619,000
Year to date transcript costs: unavailable; budgeted: $555,000
Fulton: court reporters are full-time salaried employees
Number of court reporters: 25
Salary: $48,854 to $57,174
Transcript costs: $1,016,520 paid in 2009 for superior court reporters; budgeted amount unavailable
Gwinnett: court reporters are contractors
Number of court reporters: Each superior court and state court judge has their own official court reporter and some judges have a back-up court reporter
Pay: Daily rates set by state statute (typically about $200 for an eight-hour day)
Transcript costs: $925,888 paid in 2009 for superior court and state court
Year to date transcript costs: $358,478
Sources: county court administrators and human resources departments
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