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After meeting for just over three cumulative hours this year, the interim courts committee came to a close Tuesday without making any recommendations on its assigned topic.
The panel of lawmakers and outside appointees—which includes Supreme Court Chief Justice Loretta Rush—previously heard two hours of testimony on medical debt. But Sen. Liz Brown, the committee’s chair, said they were still waiting on additional information from hospitals and couldn’t finalize suggestions ahead of the 2026 legislative session.
“I think some of us are still waiting,” Brown said. “The (Indiana) Hospital Association, for example, was asked to get us information on their charity care and their payment systems and how they interface or share that with patients. I have gotten a very small snippet; they’re still surveying their members.”
Most of Tuesday’s meeting was spent analyzing how the state will move forward on its weighted caseload management system—in other words, ensuring that judicial duties are spread out evenly across the state’s hundreds of courts. A last-minute addition to House Enrolled Act 1144 eliminated courts and magistrate positions in four counties, reviving the discussion about long-term rebalancing.
“We need an approach to assess when a reallocation of resources should occur in light of population shifts … where populations are moving towards more urban areas and away from rural areas,” said Grant County Circuit Court Judge Mark Spitzer.
Spitzer is a committee member and also the president of the Indiana Judges Association. He discussed the considerations needed to support overutilized and underutilized county-level courts and methods of measuring demand across various case types.
A report annually submitted to the Indiana Supreme Court, for example, found that the average Level 6 felony—the lowest level—took 98 minutes of a judge’s time from start to finish. Spitzer shared that judges, especially those in smaller counties, may also need time to manage offices, probation or community corrections.
“When I first became a judge, I sort of thought that I’d kind of sit in my ivory tower to make decisions. But the administrative tasks that you undergo … there’s a lot,” Spitzer said.
For example, an HVAC outage in his courthouse or a conversation with someone interested in opening a sober living home.
“None of that’s case-related time, but it’s really important for us to do as judges,” Spitzer said.
The Indiana Capital Chronicle is an independent, nonprofit news organization that covers state government, policy and elections.
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