SJI Board Awards Grants For The 3rd Quarter

On June 26, 2009, the SJI Board of Directors met to award grants for the 3rd quarter of FY 2009. A total of $328,964 in new grants was awarded, including a new Strategic Initiatives Grants (SIG) project. Awarded grants included a Project Grant to the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) to develop a Court Leadership Academy for court executives that will provide intensive education to improve their capacity to provide leadership in their courts. Another awarded Project Grant to NCSC will update the Conference of State Court Administrators (COSCA) time standards; which have not been reviewed or updated since they were adopted in 1982. NCSC will work closely with other organizations on this project, including the National Conference of State Trial Judges (NCSTJ) within the Judicial Division of the American Bar Association, the National Judicial College (NJC), the National Association of Court Management (NACM), and the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS).

Six (6) Technical Assistance (TA) applications were awarded, including a judicial resource/mentoring project for the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts; an assessment of the Fulton County, Georgia, Office of Court Administration; the Utah State Courts Self-Help Center Pilot Project; a planning project for the Florida Office of the State Courts Administrator; an assessment of timely disposition of domestic relations cases in Snohomish County, Washington; and a workload study for the Oregon Court of Appeals.

SJI also awarded a $30,000 SIG grant to NCSC to focus on state court security at a national impact level. Specifically, this SIG project will develop funding strategies for court security by using best practices, and improving continuity of operations planning for pandemic incidents.