HOLLIDAYSBURG — The state has again fallen short of supporting Blair County’s court costs, Commissioners Chairman Bruce Erb said Tuesday.

At the end of October, the state sent the county $226,853 for reimbursement of 2022’s court costs.

But Erb said 2022’s costs for judicial court staff salaries, benefits and other employee-paid expenses added up to $665,912, leaving the county to $439,059 to cover.

“Which means that (the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts) reimbursed us for slightly over one-third of our annual costs,” he said.

Erb’s message offered during Tuesday’s commissioners meeting — an updated version of previous messages — is his effort to draw attention to what he describes as a burden dumped on Blair County taxpayers.

“It is the county’s taxpayers, and more specifically the county’s property owners, who end up bearing the burden that the commonwealth is shirking,” Erb said.

The expectation that the state should cover county court costs dates back to 1987 when the state Supreme Court issued a ruling, finding that a lower court system funded by 67 counties created “an inherently unequal system of justice.”

As a remedy, the high court proposed that the state cover 100 percent of the cost of operating county courts, a goal the court said could be accomplished through legislative changes.

While those legislative changes haven’t happened, the state has taken on the responsibility of covering salaries and related costs for county court administrators and select deputies administrators.

It also pledged to annually provide counties as much as $70,000 per county judge, when money is available, toward the cost of staffing county judicial offices and related expenses.

Erb points out that the $70,000 per judge amount hasn’t been increased since the 1987 ruling while operating costs have since increased 157.6 percent, as measured by the Consumer Price Index.

“So if the (state’s) reimbursement would have been indexed to the CPI, like state elected officials’ salaries are, then counties would be receiving $180,320 per judge,” Erb said.

Erb, who is finishing his eighth year as a commissioner and decided against running for re-election, described Tuesday’s message as his last.

“For the final time, I am expressing this commissioner’s frustration as the commonwealth continues to ignore its funding responsibilities for the county courts,” he said.

Mirror Staff Writer Kay Stephens is at 814-946-7456.