 Welcome to Sheboygan County government working for you my name is Adam Payne County administrator and co-host of this program though as you can see today my fearless leader the county board chairman Roger Distruty is not with me so I'm gonna try to muddle through this without him and today we're very very pleased to have one of our 19 department heads and really an outstanding employee working for Sheboygan County in this community Rebecca Pursek our court commissioner welcome Rebecca. Thank you. I know that we've had Rebecca and of course many of our department heads on the program from time to time and our our charge or goal is to share with you a little bit more of insight about their role responsibilities and the very important work that they do and Rebecca I think you've been with the county has it been close to 15 years now? It's been over 15 years. It's been over 15 years. 16 years with the county. Yeah I know we started about the same time well let's start a little bit about just yourself why don't you set the stage and tell our viewers a little bit about your background. Well I grew up here in Wisconsin and rural Manitowoc County and I've been an attorney for the past 20 years and for the past 11 years I've worked as the circuit court commissioner. I'm married to my husband Jay for 21 years and we have two children. Now circuit court commissioner what's the difference between a circuit court commissioner a municipal judge a circuit court judge how do you distinguish between those? Well circuit court commissioner and circuit court judges are all part of the circuit court system. A municipal judge handles ordinances and non-criminal citations. They enforce the ordinances from the municipality that they work for so they're very low level types cases traffic offenses that sort of thing. The circuit court system handles all sorts of cases criminal cases family cases mental health cases delinquency cases children in need of protection and services and my job differs from that of a circuit court judge in a couple respects I'm appointed by the judges in the county at the circuit court level to preside over certain types of cases so I do a lot of initial court appearances and all the same types of cases that the circuit court judges hear I do final hearings in certain divorces and injunction type cases domestic abuse injunctions and harassment injunctions and I'm appointed as I said before I'm not elected to the circuit court I'm appointed by the judges. So a circuit court judge is in an elected position is that a four-year term? It's a six-year term. It's a six-year term and they're really considered state employees are they not? Correct. And then you're appointed by and we have five circuit court judges here you're appointed by them and you are considered a county employee? Correct. What are the qualifications to be a a circuit court judge or a court commissioner that's appointed by the judges? Well the court commissioner the qualifications are defined by law and you have to have a law degree and have at least three years of legal experience to be considered for the position of court commissioner. And what about a municipal judge as you said earlier they don't handle the same types of cases do they have similar qualifications or not? No as a matter of fact state law doesn't require a municipal judge to even have a law degree. In our county I think that the Sheboygan city and Kohler municipal court has elected to hire someone who has a law degree the Plymouth municipal court also has someone with a law degree I think Sheboygan Falls does not so state law doesn't require it So there are some differences there right yeah So what's the primary role and responsibility of the the court commissioner's department? Well to put it simply it's to help with the administration of the court system. And you touched on that a little bit but give me a little better flavor for that what's all involved what's a typical day like in your office? Well it really depends on the day every day of the week I do criminal intake so people who've been arrested generally within the last 48 hours if they're still in custody I see them to go over with them their criminal complaint what the charges are what the possible penalties are I take their plea I set bond in their case I'm on call 24 hours a day to authorize search warrants and criminal investigations and then every other day of the week my duties are divided up between the other types of cases I handle so I'll do you know a couple divorces I'll do what's called a temporary order hearing in a divorce because there's a 120 day wait from the time you file for divorce till the early estate you can get divorced and in high conflict cases especially people will come into me and ask for a temporary order where I have to make decisions about the custody and placement of the children and who gets to stay in the home and how the finances are going to be divided on a temporary basis until that final divorce can be held on Wednesday afternoons I do traffic intake and so those are the kind of like the municipal citations citations written by state patrol and sheriff's department that are non- criminal I do those every Wednesday afternoon every morning at eight o'clock if there are any mental health commitment hearings I do those at Aurora Hospital on Tuesday afternoons I do juvenile pleas and juvenile intake and children in need of protection and services so it really it really depends on the day there is no typical day there is no typical day no the breadth of of the cases you're dealing with and really impacting people's lives and child custody and I know you've had some pretty high-profile cases that you've been involved with as well I just I give you so much credit it's got to be challenging work thank you I appreciate that especially cases that impact children I mean that's something that I am very aware of it's something I take very seriously and it does weigh on me because I don't want to do anything to hurt a child or hurt a family but it's an important part of my job and I do my very best in those types of cases and reeling it back just a little bit you started 16 years ago prior to working as court commissioner you worked in our child support department did you not yep I was the assistant corporation council so I did I prosecuted the mental commitments for the county and I also did child support enforcement so again a tremendous breadth of experience tell us a little bit about your staffing with all this work going on you must have a huge staff I have one assistant court commissioner and she handles almost all the small claims cases in the county and they're substantial so that's most of her job she also fills in for me if I'm not available for some reason and she does some research work for our circuit court judges on an as needed basis and then we have two part-time paralegal aides who cover our front office they do all their scheduling they prepare all our correspondence and they do a great job running the office they handle all the questions that come in by phone or people walking in it's a it's a very busy office as you might imagine I have walked by before and I've seen a number of people waiting or coming and going and I know you I have a bailiff there from time to time and set the stage a little bit with you're appointed by the judges you're doing very similar if not the same types of work that they do what's that relationship then how does it fit in with the circuit courts you mean as far as what I do my relationship with the judges yes well a lot of what I do I think is the initial stages of the case as I said earlier and so in a high in a in a case that's for example in a family case if it's a high conflict case and I know the family is going to need a guardian and light them I'll consult with the circuit court judge generally on appointing a guardian and light and that the judge and I both feel would be appropriate given the the circumstances in the family's case so I do work closely with the circuit court judges what would be an example of a difference what's the difference between your role versus a circuit court judge I think the probably the primary difference is that I handle more of the initial aspects of the case and then the case gets passed on to the circuit court judge because from my point of view as county administrator when I see the work that you do and the heavy case load and the diversity of cases that you're doing in our in our circuit court judges it seems very similar you know from an outsider looking in right it is similar and I don't want to be disrespectful to the circuit court judges by saying what I do is the same but it's similar in in that many of the cases that I see initially you know end up in front of the judges eventually so a lot of times we're both involved in the exact same cases so for example in what what would be an example that our viewers could appreciate where someone would go to see you versus see a circuit court judge what would be an example of a difference for a temporary order hearing as I mentioned earlier so I do a lot of those in high conflict divorce cases they would see me if they if their case is still contested at the time of the final divorce hearing and they need a trial that would be done in front of the circuit court judge if it's not if they have an agreement by the time of their final hearing then I would do the divorce as well okay very good nice overview so about how many cases do you handle a year again that really depends on the type of case so the ordinances for example Wednesday afternoons I I mentioned earlier that I do traffic and ordinance intake that only takes me about a half an hour a week but they're generally you know five thousand or more cases that come through on a year on an annual basis but because they're very simple types of cases they they process very quickly um criminal cases the criminal intake I do again there are you know thousands of misdemeanors and and felonies combined every year that come through as far as family cases you know those take a lot longer if if I have a contested custody hearing I usually take an hour and a half to do those which may not even be long enough when the stakes are so high when there are children involved but that's about as much time as I can spend on on a contested custody hearing so those hearings take much longer um and I'll probably do about a you know roughly about 175 of those a year or so yeah a lot a lot of diversity a lot of different types of cases some more complicated than others which ones do you find most rewarding I think the family cases are the ones that are most rewarding because people are coming in in well in fact most of the people I see are people who are in crisis and in one way or another but particularly the family cases um the people are coming in and and their world is really upside down and in the temporary order hearing I know I keep mentioning that but that's probably the most impactful part of my job and and therefore the most rewarding because it's very early in the process and people's lives are really tipped upside down and I'm able to give them a court order a framework when they walk out of court to say okay here's here's how it's going to look going forward so even if um things aren't happy for them at least they have a a path to move forward in earlier you mentioned that you also marry people and I that's true I get a kick out of it from time to time when we've got the cars all decorated out in front of the courthouse there you see people come and go and our do you marry most the people actually in the courthouse itself or how does that work yeah almost all the marriages I perform are rate in the courthouse and we reserve Friday afternoons for those weddings and that's a great way to end the week happy way to end the week very nice and and approximately how many you say every friday is that every friday every friday you have folks looking to get married every friday so I think on average we do about 130 weddings a year in the court commissioner's office very good when you when you think about your time as as court commissioner and how long has it been exactly 11 years a little over 11 years 11 the 16 years in that office what have been some of the trends or organizational changes you know what are some of the differences you've known it from 11 years ago to today oh gosh that's a tough question I mean obviously as a department head in addition to my courtroom responsibilities I have to prepare a budget and that's been tough the last five six seven years as you know as county administrator and I have to really commend you and the county board because you've made the budget the budget process much easier for us as department heads you've set goals for us you've been firm with us but you've also assisted us in and meeting our budget targets and that's probably one of the most challenging parts actually is is being able to operate within those budget targets and I appreciate the feedback as you know we've got a good team with the county board and department heads and and department heads such as yourself need to be willing to be creative and think of means of gaining efficiencies to work within those rigid caps that we have in place whether they're self-imposed goals or goals from the state that were required to implement you've done some creative things to keep your costs in check please touch on that well I mentioned that I have two part-time paralegal aides and that was done as a cost-saving measure I used to have one full-time person in that position and when she retired we converted it to two part-time positions and that has saved a lot of money on on benefits and the the folks that are working for you right now my sense is you've really got some good staff I do they're outstanding and I couldn't do it without them that's for sure so 11 years in the job and certainly you've seen some challenges with the budget process any other trends have you noticed that there's been more types of certain types of cases or crime or are the divorce cases getting more complicated and anything else that comes to mind well I think one of the trends that's definitely been noticeable in the last 11 years is that when I started there was still I think an expectation or a preference that when a couple was getting divorced the wife would end up with primary placement of the children and that's definitely changed as time has gone on I think it's much more common now for me to see shared placement situations or to order shared placement situations so that's one trend that's definitely I've noticed a definite change in one thing that I noticed when I first started which hasn't changed is the number of domestic violence cases we see I was surprised doing criminal intake every day that every day we have people charged with domestic violence cases every day I can't think of a day ever where we haven't had at least one case and usually more than one and in a smaller community like this that was a surprise to me but it's something that's certainly prevalent and just in the last few years alone the amount of violent crime in sheboygan has really increased and heroin use of course is heroin use right when I started it was mostly crack or cocaine and then we had a meth epidemic for a short time and heroin kind of came about as a convergence of two things I think when the economy got worse small amounts of heroin are are pretty affordable on the street the problem is it's very addictive and very quickly it it balloons up into a very expensive habit and prescription pain killer use was a lot more widespread and not as tightly regulated and once it became regulated people who'd been addicted to painkillers turned to heroin so it's it's it's a huge problem not just here but but everywhere in the country and it's very uh it's a very addictive drug of the drugs uh that are available on the street I think it's definitely the most dangerous I'm not sure people are aware of how many overdose deaths we've had in sheboygan county or near deaths it's a it's a big problem yeah it is a big problem and I'm glad our our sheriff's department and the city police department I know they've been stepping up to try to be more vigilant and raising awareness to it yeah it shakes your world up when you hear about just how bad it is how addictive it is and how it just ruins lives right right and I think law enforcement's been doing a tremendous job battling the the problem every year's part of the annual budget development process of course I meet with all the department heads including you to go over the proposed budget and we talk about the programs and services and and one of the programs you've talked about in the past is remember the children and I know this is an area you talked earlier and I can see the passion from you about how much you care about families and children what is the remember the children program well state law allows counties to require any parent going through a separation whether it's a marriage situation where people are getting divorced or a paternity case or where the parents have never been married to require parents getting a separation to to take a class about the effects of the separation on the family and that's really the only under the statute that's really the only thing that's required is to educate parents about the effect in sheboygan county the class remember the children is the class that that we do and that was started by former commissioner Burke who's now circuit court judge Burke and he developed the class with the help of dr susan hind and patty brinkman who both have a counseling background and they relied on their counseling background to come up with a class that not only talks about the effects of divorce on children but how to minimize those effects how to communicate effectively with each other even though you're you're separating i think people tend not to realize you're going to continue to parent together for the rest of your lives and you need tools to be able to communicate effectively and they're also trained in child development and the types of schedules that might be appropriate for a child given their age and development and they provide education about that as well and they really give people the tools they need to to survive a divorce and and to thrive after divorce so as part of the the process of going through the divorce is it a requirement that each spouse takes this program it is yes it is and how extensive is it the program yeah it's a single three hour class they cover a lot in three hours okay and you say there's counselors there that help teach and go through this and i imagine are there to provide suggestions and support right they do and in fact the two people who are responsible for developing the class have continued to teach it they are very committed to it themselves and so they have taught it ever since it was developed 20 years ago that's fantastic my my parents were divorced when i was in high school and i'm the oldest of three siblings so i i think to my brother and my sister who's nine years younger and i think any any of us who have been in a family where our parents have been divorced or we know folks are divorced it just really changes dynamics fortunately my parents were able to maintain a cordial relationship and i'd almost say they're friends today you know you don't see that very often but every christmas every holiday you know it just changes dynamics and i think when you're in the battle of going through a divorce it's probably easy not to be thinking about how profound of an impact that's going to have on your children especially young children i i was closer to high school age but i i think about my brother and sister to this day and of course as i said every holiday is different so i i appreciate that that's a program and and something that we offer to try to support people yeah every little bit helps yep well as you reflect on this we only have a few minutes remaining but as you reflect on your your tenure as court commissioner and all of the cases you've been a part of and all the people you've helped to me it takes a unique person to have not only the skills that you mentioned earlier that are that are helpful but just the demeanor i don't know if everyone is suited to deal with those types of challenges day in and day out embarrassing me i grew up in the midwest all this praise is too much well tell me about that a little bit i mean you have to you have to keep your emotions in check it's true you have to listen to all sides i how do you do that i mean what what are some of the characteristics of a good judge how do you do it um well i'll back up and tell you something my my son got in a little trouble earlier in the week because he forgot to turn in a homework assignment and he was very upset with himself about it and then he said why don't you yell at me all my friends parents yell at me why are you so nice to me and you know i reflected on that because i i was not raised with a family who went to have yelled at me i i got yelled at uh and i realized that's that's my job and it carries over to my my home life in that respect because um you know i think everybody's human everybody makes mistakes certainly families in crisis families going through divorce they don't need someone to yell at them they need someone to listen to them and and to help them through their crisis and so i think that um that anyone in that sort of position does need to be patient they do need to listen to what people are saying um and and those are probably two of the most important qualities yeah well said and what about you personally what's your personal passion for this type of work what is it about this line of work that interests you so and that you want to continue it i'd like to try and help people i you know i i hope that i do it's it's you know i'm in a unique position because i try to foster agreement wherever i can but where there is an agreement i have to make a decision and that means sometimes people walk out of the courtroom as winners and sometimes they walk out as losers one of the most rewarding things for me is people who've stopped me after the fact people who've recognized me as i'm shopping in the grocery store something like that and and say to me look you know i didn't uh i didn't agree with your decision when you made it but but afterwards it worked out for the best and and i you know that's certainly what i i try to do for people very good so as you think big picture about the the court system as a whole and and you look to the future what do you think are some of the the greatest challenges we face as a community and as a state with our court system well certainly one of the greatest challenges has always been figuring out how to stem the tide of of um reoffending behavior in criminal cases and uh broken homes and family cases so there tends to be a lot of you know if you grow up in a home where there's a lot of crime or a lot of violence certainly not everybody but a lot of those kids become offenders themselves and there's always questions about the best way to handle that and stop that because certainly you know the goal should be prevention rather than punishment after the fact and uh as the court system from the court system's perspective oftentimes we're coming in at the end of the case and we're dealing with in the criminal scenario anyway more with punishment um that's changing a little bit uh you know there for example judge Sakevich was responsible for developing our veterans court right which is a diversion court that we're using for people who are veterans who are um accused of crimes to try and keep them out of the criminal system um and and rehabilitate them and work with families for a positive result for everybody and um judge Burke is actually working now on the development of a a drug and alcohol court similar situation so people who are addicted to drugs and alcohol trying to get involved in treating that addiction to prevent future problems because there's all sorts of crime that arises out of addiction either because people aren't in the right mind when they're um high on drugs or alcohol or because to support their habit they're committing crimes like burglaries and robberies and thefts yeah yeah always room for improvement if anyone has a question or heard something that they'd like to have more information on or want to learn more about the roles and responsibilities of your office what do they contact how to how do people get more information well county has a website so there's some information on shabuigan county dot com the website each department has a link uh that has information about that department and contact information as well and then you have an assistant that works for you that i imagine fields calls and assists as well and that's on the website for contact information yes yeah very good well thank you so much for joining us today and i hope that in the last 30 minutes or so you got a snapshot and appreciation what i've been so fortunate to work with for the last 16 years i started in january of 1999 when did you start july of 98 live 98 she's just beat me a little bit but i've had the pleasure of working with rebecca for over 15 nearly 16 years now and she is what you see very professional very thoughtful and very effective and we've been so fortunate to have you be one of our department heads as well as court commissioner for the last 11 years thank you rebecca thank you next month we're going to have another person who is a department head and then a very important role when it comes to law enforcement and holding people accountable and problem solving and that's our sheriff sheriff toad preby toad has been our sheriff now for one full term and just was reelected i think without any competition i find him to be a breath of fresh air he's very positive outgoing making good things happen not only in his department but in the community and we'll be able to learn more about the roles and responsibilities of the sheriff's department so until then thank you for joining us have a wonderful christmas and new year and we'll see you in a month or so