Court-Funding Issues Raised by Detroit's Bankruptcy

For locally funded courts, the 2013 bankruptcy of the City of Detroit, Michigan raised a number of questions regarding decision-making powers and fiscal management. Such questions are applicable in fiscally distressed jurisdictions beyond those facing the possibility of bankruptcy. With its primary...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Policy File 2016
Main Author: Hartmus, Diane M
Format: Report
Language:English
Subjects:
Budgets/Expenditures
Judiciary
National Center for State Courts
Online Access:Request full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:For locally funded courts, the 2013 bankruptcy of the City of Detroit, Michigan raised a number of questions regarding decision-making powers and fiscal management. Such questions are applicable in fiscally distressed jurisdictions beyond those facing the possibility of bankruptcy. With its primary funding source's successful bid for federal bankruptcy protection, the court was operating in the midst of a web of administrative authorities---a state-appointed court administrator, an emergency financial manager for the City of Detroit, and a federal bankruptcy judge---all of whose actions would, to varying extents, govern its current and future operations, and all of whose actions would help inform any assessment of court-funding models in similar jurisdictions as a matter of public policy. Hence, though other local courts in fiscally distressed jurisdictions may not ever experience federal-level oversight via bankruptcy, a number of experiences from Detroit are relevant in light of substantive concerns regarding intergovernmental relationships and responsibilities among each state's executive, legislative, and judicial branches.