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The Bureau of Governmental Research, a watchdog group here in New Orleans, says we have more than twice as many judges than we need.

The BGR report says Orleans Parish has 45 judges in their 7 courts when 20 are all that’s needed.  Considering each judge and their staff costs over half a million dollars a year, that’s over $12 million spent annually that isn’t necessary.

The BGR says we need to act fast to solve this problem.  The legislature must reduce the number of judges before next year’s elections.  80% of those 45 judges are up for re-election.  If legislation isn’t implemented before that election to reduce the judges from 45 to 20, we’ll be stuck with them until 2020.  That’s another 8 years, or nearly $100 million in unnecessary spending.

This isn’t a game or someone messing with a spread sheet.  This is the Bureau of Governmental Research, a watchdog group looking out for us, the citizens, not the unnecessary judges.

We reduced the number of Assessors in New Orleans, saving millions of dollars in the process, without lowering the quality of work. The same needs to be done with New Orleans judges.