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Oregon

Overview

  • The Oregon Judiciary is primarily a state-funded court system.  The county pays for the limited jurisdiction courts. Oregon’s appropriation of $185 million in FY11 will be the same dollar amount in FY12.  Their FY11 budget had been decreased during the fiscal year. 
  • To reduce spending, the Oregon courts have reduced hours of operation, imposed staff layoffs, delayed filling judicial vacancies, delayed filling vacancies in the clerks’ offices and in judicial support positions, frozen staff salaries, and reduced the use of retired judges.
  • Oregon is implementing e-citations and is conducting some hearings with videoconferencing equipment. 
  • The Oregon Judiciary has formed a committee that is identifying and promoting reengineering and best practices. Oregon has centralized the accounting functions for approximately 1/3rd of the Circuit Courts and shifted the printing and mailing of checks to the State's printing/mailing facility for those courts.
  • The budget environment has reduced resources available to the courts both in personnel and in services and supplies. This has resulted in reduced operating hours, longer processing times, decreases in morale, increases in expected errors, and an overall decrease in quality of justice and access to justice.

Reports and Articles  

Gavel to Gavel

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