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Five-Year Courthouse Project Plan Approved

Statement Submitted to House Appropriations Subcommittee

The Judicial Conference last month approved a Five-Year Courthouse Project Plan for Fiscal Years 2003-2007. The FY 03 plan includes 22 projects totalling $1.02 billion, ten of which are included in the President's FY 03 budget sent to Congress earlier this year. The budget also includes funding for six repair and alteration projects in Davenport, Iowa; Cleveland, Ohio; Dallas, Texas; Manchester, New Hampshire; Seattle, Washington; and St. Paul, Minnesota.

As chair of the Judicial Conference Committee on Security and Facilities, Judge Jane Roth (3rd Cir.) last month submitted a statement on the need for FY 03 courthouse funding to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Treasury, Postal Service, and General Government. The subcommittee recently held hearings at which representatives from the General Services Administration testified. The GSA is the Executive Branch agency that receives the funding and oversees construction of courthouses for the Judiciary.

In her statement, Roth noted that a backlog of projects has occurred due to a lack of funding in previous years. New courthouses are needed even more as the Judiciary's workload continues to grow, and many of the courthouses, some of which are over 50 years old, have become dangerous and inefficient for those who work in and visit them. Adequate security is increasingly a problem. "The projects on the Five-Year Plan are urgently needed when they are placed on the plan," Roth told the subcommittee, "and delays only exacerbate problems." The Conference uses a weighted scoring method to prioritize new courthouse projects--all of which have first been identified as needed by individual districts or circuits in their long-range facilities plans. Prioritizing of projects takes into consideration the year a district's current courthouse is projected to be out of space, security concerns, the number of additional judges who could not be housed in the current facility, and operational concerns. For example, a court where a project is needed may lack a secure receiving area, and prisoners are unloaded from the street, then move through general corridors and elevators with the public. Space may be at a premium in the building, forcing court units to occupy leased space and split operations. Split operations has led, in a least one instance, to court functions in three separate locations and the need to transport jurors, confidential files and evidence, including drugs and money, between court locations.

Artist's drawing of a proposed Los Angeles courthouse

The prioritization criteria continue to be refined by the Conference Committee on Security and Facilities. Recently, the committee agreed to give more weight to projects where current judges lack dedicated courtrooms than to projects where a projected number of judges will need dedicated courtrooms in the future. And following the September 11, 2001, attacks, factors relevant to the threats that could be directed at federal courthouses now will be part of the overall security assessment of a facility.

The Judiciary also is mindful of costs. "Since the courthouse construction program began," Roth told the House subcommittee, "[the Judiciary] has become increasingly rigorous and structured in order to control costs." The U.S. Courts Design Guide; the Five-Year Plan and its prioritization process; and a long-range facilities planning process to determine the ability of existing facilities to meet projected space needs, are all part of that cost control effort.

Within the next few weeks Roth will appear before the House Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management, Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, to present the Judiciary's case for full funding of the needed courthouse projects. Representatives from the General Services Administration also are expected to testify.