A committee appointed to study the city’s municipal court presented its findings to Conroe City Council, making a recommendation to make the court full-time.
In August, the council agreed to appoint the committee after Municipal Judge William Waggoner requested the court be full-time and a raise that would have more than doubled his pay.
Waggoner also requested his salary increase to $105,000 from $49,920.
“What I have seen over the last year is we need to continue to expand,” Waggoner said during the council’s Aug. 23 workshop. “I believe we need to add additional dockets to hear these cases.”
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Former Municipal Judge Mike Davis, who retired from the bench in 2022, presented the report to the council during a workshop meeting Wednesday.
The committee supported making the judge position full-time but did not recommend a salary.
Davis said the committee also looked at several other factors, including the issue of being a court of record.
Conroe is not a court of record, which means it doesn’t keep a record of all proceedings that a higher court can review. For this reason, most appeals from municipal courts are tried a second time in a county court.
Davis said Conroe has a “very small” percentage of cases needing appeals.
“The other consideration for having a court of record is you are going to pay about three times as much to have an attorney judge,” Davis said. “The consensus of the committee is we are not recommending a court of record at this time. We don’t feel like we have outgrown our current system at this point.”
Data from City Attorney Michael Garner shows a decrease in citations and violations handled through the court through July, with 5,011 citations with 6,437 violations, down from 6,055 citations and 7,757 violations in 2022.
The committee, Davis said, also considered an elected judge versus an appointed judge. All but about five municipal judges in the state are not appointed, he said.
“The pros are the court is a people’s court and people want to elect their judge,” Davis said.
The council did not discuss the recommendation and did not take any action.
