Case backlog challenged by court reporter shortage
With a historic backlog of cases, Milwaukee County temporarily shut down a courtroom this week because it did not have enough court reporters.
Court reporters are required by law to capture what happens in courtrooms when judges, attorneys, defendants and others are on the record.
“Our court reporters are invaluable to the system,” Chief Judge Mary Triggiano said.
On Monday, Triggiano had to shift a civil judge’s court reporter into a criminal court that handles homicide and sexual assault cases, leaving the civil judge without a reporter and a delay for “a small number of cases.”
A criminal misdemeanor court also was without a court reporter that morning, she said.
Last Friday, no court reporters were available for a family court judge, but the judge was still able to resolve a case that day, she said.
“It’s a daily puzzle that we are constantly trying to figure out,” she said.
Court reporting can mean a stenographer typing in the courtroom or a reporter who monitors a digital audio recorder.
Milwaukee County has 47 courts. In April, there were 44 court reporters, including some from the statewide pool — a number Triggiano described then as a “significant shortage,” compared with the 60 or so reporters working before the pandemic hit.
The situation has not gotten better, the chief judge said this week.
The court reporter shortage has been decades in the making. Stenography has become less popular, training schools closed, recording technology improved and working stenographers reached retirement age.
A 2013 study estimated demand for
stenographers nationwide would exceed the number of workers by 11,345 positions by next year.
Judges sent warning of ‘crisis’ to courts director last fall
This week marked the first time the court reporter shortage caused a courtroom to close in Milwaukee County.
But it’s come close to happening before.
In a letter last fall to the director of state courts, 25 Milwaukee County judges used the word “crisis” to describe the situation. At that time, the court system had come within one court reporter of having to shut down a court for the day.
The judges, members of the Milwaukee Trial Judges Association, acknowledged the court administrators tried to juggle staff to minimize the impact.
Still, they wrote, “it is entirely conceivable that a jury trial would have to be significantly delayed or mis-trialed because there is no court reporter available to continue with the trial proceedings.”
The judges suggested hiring court reporters from private law firms at a daily rate, increasing the pay rate for transcriptions (additional income separate from salary) and recruiting more court reporters.
Randy R. Koschnick, director of state courts, told the judges he has been implementing recommendations from a task force dedicated to the statewide problem.
The task force report, released in 2018, identified a “critical” shortage in every judicial district in Wisconsin and recommended adding more digital audio court reporters, who need less training than stenographers.
“In each judicial district, the district administrative assistant spends hours every week trying to make sure all proceedings are covered,” the report said. “Court may even be canceled, an event that will inevitably become more frequent unless changes are made.”
A pilot project for court reporters to work remotely has expanded the reach of the statewide pool. A court reporter in La Crosse can appear virtually and take the record in a Milwaukee courtroom, for example.
In his letter to the judges, Koschnick also highlighted national trends and noted up to 40% of the state’s court reporters will be eligible for retirement between fall of 2021 and 2025.
What’s more, efforts at recruitment had been difficult, especially for stenographers, a demanding field that has a graduation rate of 5% to 10% of all students, he wrote.
In an interview with the Journal Sentinel, Koschnick maintained raising wages or transcript fees would not change the staffing problems.
“It’s not a question of not paying enough, it’s a labor shortage,” he said.
In Wisconsin, digital reporters have a salary range between $43,000 and $64,000 annually, while stenographer salaries range from $46,000 to $80,000 annually, depending on years of experience and certifications.
Although audio-to-transcription technology has improved, Koschnick said it still is not accurate enough to make a written record of multiple people speaking at different volumes and with different accents.
Milwaukee starts night court pilot project
The reporter shortage comes as courts across the state try to dig out of a pandemic-induced case backlog.
In Milwaukee County, officials are working to set up five additional criminal courts using federal COVID-19 relief funds funneled through the state.
The federal funds will pay for additional prosecutors and public defenders but do not cover court reporting costs.
One reserve judge already has started work and another judge has been added to the homicide/sexual assault court, Triggiano said.
The COVID relief package also included money to pay for staff overtime to run a pilot night court, which began last week.
That first night, Judge Christopher Dee, currently presiding judge over the misdemeanor division, had 25 people on the docket making their initial appearances on traffic and forfeiture cases.
Twenty-two people showed up and 85% of the cases were resolved that night, Triggiano said.
Court officials have weekly meetings to address problems with the worker shortages across the courthouse and make sure the case backlog is moving in the right direction, she said.
“The majority of people I work with are so focused on figuring out how to get people access to justice,” the chief judge said.