Court Service Money Stuck In Cook County Limbo

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Jul 13, 2009 3:40PM

WBEZ's Rob Wildeboer brings us an interesting and all-too-familiar story of funding for court services - like drug court, mental health court and youth services court - being stuck in limbo. For three years, the county has allegedly been collecting $5 from court fees, which cost $135, to distribute to these court services. But a legislative hang-up is preventing that money from actually going anywhere, particularly to these court services, such as a mediation service provided by juvenile court Judge Michael Stuttley which allows a victim to meet face-to-face with an offender to settle differences. Stuttley tells Wildeboor, "If we had $80, 85,000, we could run the program and we have mediators who have been trained at no cost, no cost to us whatsoever, it's just the clerical expense of setting everything up that we're looking for." After doing a little math, Wildeboer discovers there should be roughly half a million dollars going to programs like Stuttley's. but the money's not getting there thanks to a legislative oversight. Check out the full story here.