Costs cloud court race

In any hotly contested political race, accusations fly and get countered. In that sense, the contest between Tiffin-Fostoria Municipal Court Judge Rhonda Best and her opponent, Jim Fruth is no different. Fruth claims Best relies too much on visiting judges to handle the court's docket. But Best counters that Fruth is misreading the statistics and doesn't understand how the court works. The punch and counterpunch came last week on the campaign trail, during a candidates forum sponsored by the Fostoria Chamber of Commerce. By the numbers "I went back and looked at the performance for the past approximately eight to 10 months and was disappointed by what I found," Fruth said. Between Dec. 5, 2022, and June 30, 2023, the court relied on visiting judges 52 times, Fruth said. Those numbers, by his calculations, show Judge Best handled fewer than 25% of the court's criminal cases and less than 20% of its civil cases. The numbers he looked at were provided by the Ohio Supreme Court and the Seneca County Auditor's Office, Fruth said. But his math is wrong, according to Best, it's way off. "We have processed over 5,000 cases, the bulk of those are handled by me," she said, explaining that visiting judges are sometimes necessary. "(It happens) because of conflicts in certain cases that I prosecuted. If I was the original prosecutor on the case, that is not fair or ethical for me to hear the rest of that case as a judge," she said. "So there have been several cases that had to be handled (that way)." The state Supreme Court provides the visiting judge program, which Best said saves taxpayers money because the court does not hire a full-time magistrate or acting judges. In the past the court spent more money on full-time magistrates and/or acting judges than what it costs to have a visiting judge. "The visiting judges may have been there some different times for one case alone or to cover a day when I had new judge orientation that is required by the Supreme Court of Ohio." The training benefits the community, "because who wants a judge who does not understand the ins and outs of being a judge and the rules?" she said. Best was appointed the court's judge after former Judge Mark Repp was suspended from the practice of law by the state Supreme Court and the seat was later declared vacant last year. She won the Republican primary earlier this year, handily beating Repp, whose law license was subsequently reinstated, for the Republican Party nomination. The state Supreme Court cited Repp for two code of conduct violations after he verbally abused a court spectator and held her in contempt without cause, according to the court's finding. Adding it up Fruth is misreading the data, Best said. "The only times I have not been on the bench and present in court were for trainings, for conflict cases or for personal illness," she said. She also sought advice from the Board of Professional Conduct for cases in which Fruth is acting as an attorney. "(The board) advised I should recuse myself from any case involving my opponent after the primary, so I did so and that's about 12 cases so that would account for 12 different times of visiting judges." The forms The data from the Ohio Supreme Court and the information from Seneca County Auditor Julie Adkins includes information Fthe AJ and IJ reporting forms for the Ohio Supreme Court. The AJ form stands for Administrative judge and IJ is for individual judge. According to Lyn Tolan, a spokeswoman for state Supreme Court, the AJ form is a triage for all of the data coming to the court. These cases are disposed quickly as they may be taken care of without going to the IJ or individual judge calendar due to the cases going to default judgement, being uncontested, or other actions. When a case makes it beyond the initial phases without being resolved, it bypasses the AJ form and goes to the IJ form. "When it comes to the AJ and IJ forms, you need to think of them as separate," Tolan said. "The numbers are not mutually exclusive. Even if a bunch of different judges are in a court, those two forms wouldn't equal out." Further, she explained that in instances when a judge recuses themselves, such as in Best's case in which she is a former prosecutor, they must use an assigned judge. "It is a super, super standard," Tolan said. "It is not unusual in a single judge court that the Supreme Court may make an assignment for a three-month period. During that period, an assigned judge is on standby for the potential that the sitting judge needs to be out." The variables When it comes to paying for visiting judges, there's been estimates that it is $30,000 annually. That amount comes from JASPAY time entry detail report of the Tiffin-Fostoria Municipal Court from the Supreme Court's website. The report with a total of $32,875 starts on Dec. 2, 2022, which is prior to when Best was appointed to fill the vacancy in Tiffin-Fostoria Municipal Court. The report ends on Sept. 29, 2023. What was failed to be taken into account regarding the hours worked by visiting judges in this report is that some of the assignments were made either during the vacancy or due to a recusal. Eliminating those reduces the number of assignments by 19 (estimated), reducing the expense to about $25,000. What was also not taken into account with the $32,875 amount is that the amount is divided between the state, county and the city. Further, when looking at the Fiscal Year 2023 Retired Assigned Judges Billing Statement Invoice dated Aug. 1, 2023, to the Seneca County Treasurer from the Supreme Court of Ohio that covers the billing period from July 1, 2022 – June 30, 2023, any cases with Mark Repp as the requesting judge, vacancy assignments and recusal assignments must be removed from the equation. Only 43 of the entries on that list meet the requirements listed above. With those removed, the county spent $8,614 on assigned judges for Best. The state spent $12,041. According to Jennifer McClure, Clerk of Tiffin-Fostoria Municipal Court the city of Tiffin paid $6,688 from December 2022 – June 2023. This amount does include visiting judge assignments made for the vacancy and recusals as the city did not provide the A-T with an itemized list of these costs. The explanations For those dates that did not fall under Repp, the vacancy or a recusal, the A-T reached out to Best with specific dates so she could provide an explanation. 4/13/23 - PIVOT and civil court in Fostoria used to be on the same day. Best wanted to bring PIVOT back to Tiffin-Fostoria Municipal court so she used a visiting judge in Fostoria so she could attend PIVOT. This issue has since been rectified but it took some time for this to happen. 4/19/23 - Best attended new judge orientation in Crawford County. She explained that as part of being a new judge, she and all new judges are required to have a mentor judge with whom she meets quarterly with for a year. 4/27/23 - Best was again attending PIVOT court and a visiting judge was utilized for Fostoria civil cases. 4/28/23 - Best was working on creating a court schedule for Fostoria and Tiffin had already been scheduled. She utilized a visiting judge to handle Tiffin cases in order for her to focus on the Fostoria schedule meeting attorney needs. 5/8/23 - 5/11/23 - Best was attending required new judge training. 5/12/23 - The day was requested because Best thought the new judge training was 5 days, but it was 4. 5/25/23 - PIVOT again. 7/10/23 - 7/12/23 - Judge conference in Cincinnati. 7/28 - Third district bench conference. Judges Steve Shuff and Damon Alt of Seneca County Common Pleas Court also attended. 9/14 - Requested but not needed. 9/15 - Best's son got married. 9/29 - PIVOT training 11/17 - Personal