Explaining the difference between a judge and a justice, Colorado Supreme Court Chief Justice Nancy Rice gave state lawmakers an idea of how the state court system is set up, at times causing House and Senate members to chuckle and laugh.

Her sometimes light-hearted and informative State of the Judiciary address Friday, Jan. 13, began with Rice stating “I’m not the boss, they are” and gestured towards other state Supreme Court justices sitting in the front row of the House chambers. Rice explained the chief justice is chosen by all the court’s judges and the title can be taken away “if they think I’m not doing a good job.”

The chief justice also serves as the executive head of the Colorado Judicial System and is the ex-officio chair of the Supreme Court Nominating Commission. The chief justice appoints the chief judges of the Court of Appeals and each of the state’s 22 judicial districts, and has the authority to assign judges (active or retired) to handle judicial duties.

Rice introduced each of her present colleagues – justices Nathan Coats, Allison Eid, Monica Marquez, Brian Boatright and William Hood and Richard Gabriel – and talked about various judicial committees and programs they were involved in for the court system. Areas included judicial nominating commissions, attorney regulation, public access, courthouse security, access to justice for those without legal representation and others.

Rice also introduced several judges on the state Court of Appeals and explained their participation in similar areas.

One budgetary request Rice mentioned that will be considered by lawmakers in this year’s session was an approximate $879,000 increase to the more than $4.2 million annual budget for court language interpreters, “Not all of which are for Spanish translators, Colorado has a real melting pot population.”

Supreme Court spokesman Rob McCallum wrote in an email that the increase would be split two ways: Approximately $276,000 would be used for a $5 an hour increase for Spanish language interpreters and the remaining approximately $602,000 would be used to address the case load increase and need for more interpreter services the court system has seen in recent years.

McCallum noted that in fiscal year 2015, the courts had a 9 percent increase in demand for interpreters, followed by a 4 percent increase in the last fiscal year.

Translators are contract employees, he added, so there is no fixed full-time employee number to the proposal.

The state judicial department’s total fiscal year 2017-18 budget request is $546.1 million, including $350.3 million from the state general fund. This represents a nearly $12 million increase over the 2016-17 appropriation. The request includes a $19.4 million general fund increase, or 5.9 percent.

The main areas to benefit from the requested general fund increase are $10.9 million for salary increases; $7.3 million for statewide common policy increases such as health, life and dental insurance and others; $1.9 million to meet the state’s statutory responsibility related to county courthouse projects. The budget request noted the increases are offset by a $2.3 million decrease from prior year spending.

By the way, Rice explained a justice is the highest designation for the judicial system, only used for the Supreme Court. Judges are the secondary level at the state, judicial district, county and municipal levels.

*Corrected story and photo caption on Monday, Jan. 16, to include Justice Richard Gabriel.