Juvenile/Probate Court needs more room, Judge Gallagher tells Commissioners

In addition, the Juvenile Court and probation department is working on new programming to address the increase in caseload and the severity of the cases, which ideally would include additional space for private consultations, assessments and programming, Gallagher said.

Put simply, the Juvenile & Probate Court needs more room.

“We are growing out of our designated area in the Courthouse,” Gallagher told commissioners. She added that when she was appointed in 2020, she cut staff from 14 in the two divisions to 11, though at the end of last year, thanks to a state grant, she brought in a full time diversion officer.

What does it all add up to? “We need more room,” Gallagher told commissioners — who ironically are now meeting in the East Annex office building on a temporary basis due to what could be a year-long asbestos remediation project going on at the commissioners office on the 4th floor of the courthouse.

Gallagher said she doesn’t have an answer, as commissioners noted other department offices in the courthouse have expressed similar needs, but she did want to get a discussion going.

“I wanted to come early to you in the year so that we can begin this conversation of the growing needs that are in our county,” she said, adding that guardianship case filings in this past year have increased — though staff has not — due to closure of a facility that was located in Defiance County and a transfer of many of those residents to Williams County.

“So we have experienced quite an increase based upon that alone in 2022 ... We have had increases in all areas of the juvenile division and none so significant as our Abuse Neglect Dependent Cases, these are very serious cases for the children and the families in Williams County,” said Gallagher, adding, “We expect these trends to increase in these court filings to be continuing.”

That, she said, would need to be addressed by adding staff, which means more offices in an already maxed out office footprint. “...if this trend continues, we will need to at some point need to increase staff. We have maxed out what our staff is doing.”

Space

In response to a question from commissioner Lew Hilkert on how much square footage she might need, Gallagher said she didn’t know.

“I wanted to come in and begin the conversation with you because I think this will be a continuing conversation of saying what can we do and where can we have additional space be allocated to the court. I don’t know the answer and my hope is that we can work together to come up and find out what that can be.

“I will tell you that when I come in October for budget purposes, we are going to be talking about these things again and I would rather have a plan on the books,” Gallagher said.

Meanwhile, Gallagher said her focus remains on serving the children and families going through Juvenile Court, and the challenges of serving children that are coming through the system that are much younger than before

“I have talked about the age of children that are coming through the court is decreasing. It is not uncommon to have 10 or 11 year olds now coming through the court. That is very bothersome and for our community it’s something that you may reach out and say ‘what are you guys doing, what are we doing to make these families better and stronger.’

“So, I see our role as huge in all of this. I just want to be able to do that for the community and do the most that we can to help. That is going to take space,” she said.