Security screening at Maine’s courthouses will become more common and clerks’ offices will be better staffed under the new budget for the state’s judicial branch.

The $6 billion state budget that Gov. Paul LePage signed into law last week allows the judiciary to fill positions that have been left vacant because of budget constraints. The judicial branch was funded at $48.4 million for the fiscal year that starts Friday, and $49.5 million for the following year.

In recent years, about 30 to 35 of the judiciary’s 493 authorized positions have been unfilled at any given time. The affected positions were primarily in security and in clerks’ offices. The hiring will be staggered because the budget does not allow for filling all the slots at once.

The staffing situation limits security screening at courthouse entrances and forces some clerks’ offices to close to the public at times so the staff can catch up on work piling up. The backlog caused delays for civil matters, such as landlord-tenant disputes and small-claims cases, and sometimes slowed down even priority matters – cases involving crime, violence and child protection.

The judiciary’s budget also includes money for court renovation projects and allows the judicial branch to absorb the position of a drug court coordinator that was previously paid for by tobacco settlement money through the Fund for a Healthy Maine.

Maine Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Leigh Saufley said it was gratifying to know that LePage, legislative leaders and lawmakers listened to the concerns of the judiciary.

“Both the governor and the Legislature in their unanimous work have demonstrated how important it is to have a system of justice that is accessible to the public,” Saufley said in an interview last week.

Security screening now takes place 20 percent of the time at Maine’s 39 courthouses. The new budget is expected to raise that level to 25 percent. It would cost more than $3 million in each of the next two years to bring screening up to 100 percent.

The Maine judicial marshals focus on high-risk trials and days with heavy dockets but don’t publicize screening days, said Chief Deputy William Snedeker.

Last year, 109,299 people were screened statewide. Of those, 2,106 people were either found with knives or turned knives over voluntarily, and 110 had other dangerous items like Mace, martial arts stars or handcuffs.

So far this year, 33,707 people have been screened, with 627 people found with knives and 40 people with items in the miscellaneous category.

In March, a New Gloucester man was arrested after the X-ray machine at the Portland courthouse revealed an unloaded .45-caliber pistol in his zippered pouch. The man, who was scheduled to attend a protection-from-abuse order hearing, was not carrying any ammunition and told marshals he forgot the gun was inside.

“Screening is really the No. 1 tool to have, the best safety measure in our courthouse,” Snedeker said.

The staffing shortages in clerks’ offices led to a policy in which offices with vacancies of 20 percent or more would be closed to the public for a period of time each week. That situation occurred in quite a few clerks’ offices – including Portland, York County and Rumford – but on a rotating basis because there was an effort to spread the vacancies around the state, said Ted Glessner, state court administrator,

Glessner said the policy will remain on the books, but he hopes the need to close clerks’ offices to the public will disappear.

Staffing shortages have posed challenges for several years, but have been particularly difficult in the past two years, Glessner said. In the previous biennial budget, the judicial budget was reduced by $1 million in each of the two years.

“Even when we’re at baseline, we’re a pretty thin operation in terms of dealing with cases,” he said.

Even with staffing restored to full levels, there will be fewer employees than there were several years ago. In 2008, the number of authorized positions stood at 512, or 19 more than this year.

The budget includes $1 million to begin funding renovations to Augusta and Machias courthouses, which opened in 1830 and 1854, respectively, said Mary Ann Lynch, a spokeswoman for the court system. The two are among the 14 courthouses operated by the state that are more than 100 years old.

A previous Legislature authorized funding for renovations at the Dover-Foxcroft courthouse, which was built in 1886.

Staff Writer Ann S. Kim can be contacted at 791-6383 or at: akim@pressherald.com