Welcome to the meeting of the Court Services Committee, Wednesday, June 10th, 2026 at 630. I'll call the meeting to order.
First order of business is prayer. I'll take care of that.
Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us this time to get together and talk about our Court Services Committee.
Father, we thank you for all the blessings and we thank you for the rain today, if you need that, we could do without the wind, but you know, we'll take what we get.
So just guide us, Lord, as we go through the process today, in Jesus' name, Amen.
Next is the approval of the agenda. Can I get a motion? Motion to approve the agenda. Second.
Any discussion?
All those in favor say aye.
Opposed? Same sign.
Motion passes.
Approval of the meeting minutes
from May 13th, 2026. Can I get a motion?
Motion to approve. Second.
Motion approved or second.
Any discussion?
All those in favor say aye.
Did everybody get a chance to look at them? The total is $30,274.84. Any discussion, question for any of them?
Motion to approve. Second. Motion passes. Motion in second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign.
Motion passes, okay, I'll just quickly sign this and pass it on.
All right, public comment, I see no,
unless somebody has a public comment.
Reports to committee, Judge Hauser's not here.
Travis Lutz is here.
So you sent a report, I saw it.
Yep. Yep. If you guys got any questions about it, I don't know what that would be, but if you do have any questions, I'm here to assist in a new manner. Getting on a question about public finance office in general.
I would just ask if you are level staffing levels.
We are doing fine. We've got the same people that we have had. So we've got me and then the three other full-time attorneys in one part-time. So that one part-time person was improved as a full-time position originally, but we're, we're fine exactly how we're doing right now. So hopefully things stay the same and aren't uprooted and we'll be going in the right direction. So what's like your business? Yeah, summer is,
Some are a different animal than normal. It continues and it hasn't really been a, I guess it hasn't been horrible. It has not been horrible to try to resolve some of the older stuff that we have gotten on this, start to come back. So, this has been a bit busier.
Are these numbers right? Open felony cases, 691?
Yeah, but those would also take into account like petitions to revoke that are felony offenses too.
They are not like actual open offenses. Like the felony cases are open, but not pending new offenses
that have never been resolved. They're generally speaking probably less than half of that.
That seems like kind of how I know. We're on a very big county.
Yeah, we get a fair amount of film and film. I suppose, yeah, that makes sense.
Yeah. Okay. Anybody else have any questions for Mr. Lutz? No. Thanks. Are you coaching?
I am to see if next season I go to field agreements this weekend. So that practice was supposed to be
Today, but the weather changed that.
What, eight? Good.
Ten.
Ten, okay. Let's vote.
Yeah, it's fine.
Probation? I haven't heard from the doctor, maybe.
She was on the, she told me the department had a meeting this morning.
She had a conflict this morning, so she couldn't make it,
but she did say to please reach out with any questions if anything was unclear,
but she did include her report, so.
So she's busy too, okay, State's Attorney, Mr. Larson.
All right, you've got my report in front of you.
Didn't close quite as many felonies this last month
as we normally like to do.
We had two prosecutors and our seven lawyers
2011 and our Victim and Witness Coordinator all went to Dallas for a conference focusing
on violence against children. It's been a long-standing conference. I went there when
I was a new prosecutor and found it to be very worthwhile. That was paid for by the grant
that we had received previously.
So that might have something to do with us
resolving a few fewer cases.
One of our third Assistant State Attorney, Seth Balling,
has moved on, he went to the Lee County
State's Attorney's Office,
which, you know, he got along well in our office
and we liked him.
He is getting married to an Assistant Public Defender.
of course. So moving to a different county did resolve some conflicts that we might otherwise have had to address. But we're very happy to the vote. They're both great people.
Beyond that, if you have to answer any questions you have.
Any questions?
Was it just because of the marriage or the pay or?
You know, Seth is a little bit of a taciturn man, and I didn't want to pry too much.
One of the things he said is, well, we've got a 457 plan or something like that.
I said, Seth, we have that, and he went, oh, I don't know, I don't know what the totality
of it was, but I would say that he was an individual, I think, that took quite a bit
of Pride in being a felony prosecutor. And just due to our staffing, I had moved him
down to misdemeanor court. And I don't think he was very happy with that. Although he never
complained. He's not a complaint. But in Lee County, he'll be back in felony courts.
We had that month where we were only short one and then, I don't know, years we've been
down too. Okay. All right. So, still looking. We are asleep. Okay. Good. Did the class graduate or? Yeah, we got no resumes from the graduating class. We'll wait for people to take our exams in July and we'll post again and see what happens there.
That's it. Thank you. Thank you. Well, we'll move on to sort of the collection now.
Good evening. Good evening.
You should have my report if you have any questions, let me know.
I do have two new employees, one's been there a little over a month and the other one a little over two.
And they're doing well, hopefully they say.
I'm in the process of applying again for the Access to Justice Grant in the past,
of Fossus Self-Representative, Lynette Grant.
So I'm filling that out and then to do next month
and hopefully they'll get some funds.
Yeah, those funds are restricted to this, any certainty.
The self-representative, I guess,
we can use it for carbon orders on loaves,
trying to get new printers in the courtroom,
Asking for L.I.M. fees, last year I was denied that, but I'm going to ask to end it.
So is that those two new ones bring you up to full staff?
Okay, very good.
Any other questions for Chanel?
All right, well thank you.
Used Diversion Fees in June, $526.79, brings the total up to $2,620.78.
Just as a note, one of the checks have that.
Hope wins. Thank you.
Okay. Moving on to old business. I see none. New business. Anybody have anything they'd like to bring up with the business?
Seeing none. Motion to adjourn. Second. Motion and second for adjournment. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Same signs.
Thank you for your time. Really appreciate it.