Northwest Iowa — All state court offices in Iowa will be closed this coming Friday, May 26th, due to budget constraints.
According to an order from Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Cady, all court offices, including district court offices and the office of the clerk of the appellate courts, will be closed, and all court personnel except judges and magistrates will be placed on unpaid leave status for May 26th. Cady writes that judges and any magistrate scheduled to work on that day will work in their chambers or take vacation on that court closure day.
Cady’s order went on to say that any filing of a motion in a pending action, or if an appeal falls on the day when the clerk’s office is closed, the time will be extended to include the next day the clerk’s office is open.
The Iowa Judiciary’s budget was cut by more than $5-million for fiscal year 2017, with another $3-million being cut after lawmakers resumed their work in January of this year, according to Cady. He says that, after the initial budget cuts, the Supreme Court approved a hiring freeze for all vacancies on the judicial branch, holding open judicial vacancies for an average of 6-months, reducing travel by 10%, reducing furniture and non-IT equipment by 50%, shifting some funding for IT operations to the Court Technology Fund, and instituting a moratorium on the expansion of specialty courts.
Cady says the additional $3-million budget cut led to the one-day closing, this Friday, of all court offices in the state.
