SHOALS — Martin County Circuit Court Judge Joe Howell asked the county council Tuesday for two more full-time and two part-time workers he said he needs at least until the end of the year.

While the judge and his staff are more than willing to work with the new county clerk and his staff, it’s just a reality the courthouse newcomers have no experience with the job, Howell said. That’s bad enough for the county and its taxpayers, particularly with an election coming up in May, for which the clerk’s office is responsible. Absentee voting starts Monday, and the new clerk, John Hunt, told him the election is Hunt’s priority, Howell explained.

But with an untrained and inexperienced staff, Hunt has also not been able to keep up with the second, equally important job of the county clerk’s office — processing court records in and through and back out of the office. In Indiana counties, the clerk serves both as the clerk of the county, running and managing local, state and national elections, but also as clerk of the circuit court, meaning they answer directly to Howell, who’s responsible for the records and documents flowing in and out. They also collect and distribute child support, another important task, the judge said.

“With the recent change in the clerk’s office, I met with the deputies and the clerk, and they readily admit they have no experience,” Howell told the seven-member council. “But since March 24, there has been nothing happening in the clerk’s office related to the court’s work.”

All court papers enter the system through either the court itself or through the clerk’s office, and all such documents leave through the clerk’s office. But since Linda Nolan, acting clerk of the county until noon on March 24, and her experienced staff quit their jobs that Friday, court records aren’t being filed, processed or documented, and Howell said court payments also aren’t being entered in a computer system that seemingly baffles the new clerk and his employees.

Insisting that he and his staff have a good relationship with Hunt and his brand new staff, Howell also said the computers in the office weren’t damaged or trashed in any way by Nolan or her deputies and staff. But with each computer set up to operate under specific names and passwords — a system Howell instituted to provide accountability for work done or left undone — Martin County’s lone judge said he understood their reluctance to leave their names open for new workers coming in.

“On the Friday, there was a change in personnel. Nothing was done to the computer system, and I want to be sure everyone is clear on that,” Howell went on. “Those people in the office had a user name and password that gets them into the system, and those people who worked there just logged out of the system and left.”

So it’s not a matter of the computers being vandalized, he explained, but a matter of the new staff having access to the computer system and not knowing what to do with it.

“But I have a duty to track what goes in and out of the clerk’s office, and ...my people are threatening to walk out because of their workload, and lawyers are calling and asking for papers and we don’t know where they are,” Howell said.

Therefore, he has to have the extra workers at a price tag of about $68,000 a year — if they worked a full year — regardless of the county’s financial health, or lack of it, he said. “I don’t care if you have to cut it out of the clerk’s office and give it to me to do their work, or get it from the auditor’s office or the assessor’s office,” he continued. “We got in this mess when you cut a person or two from the clerk’s office, and she resigned, and I think she knew what a mess it would be to get the work done with less people.”

Whether former clerk Debbie Christmas resigned over the lean budgets forced on all Martin County officeholders last fall or not, Howell said he believes that’s the reason. The current situation came about when the Democratic Party held a caucus last November to elect a replacement for Christmas, a Democrat, and Hunt won by a slight margin. Chief Deputy Clerk Linda Nolan, who also sought the position, charged party chairman Rich Taylor with using illegal procedures in the voting, making Hunt’s election null and void.

While Hunt and Nolan awaited a ruling by special Judge William Wiekert of Dubois County, Howell upheld an injunction keeping Hunt from taking office and Nolan in place. So for several months, she and her experienced staff ran the office as always. Wiekert’s decision, handed down several weeks ago, favored Hunt, who then walked into the clerk’s office to assume his position.

It was then that Nolan and three full-time and several part-time workers logged off computer systems, turned in their keys and left. Since then, as Howell told the council, not much was getting done, and his court staff had no time available to train new workers.

But they also have no time to do the work three of the former clerk’s employees used to do, and that’s why he demanded the new positions, which he hopes won’t be needed past year-end, he said. He hopes by then Hunt will have the office under control and training complete.

Worried about the woes of the courts, Councilwoman Lynn Gee said the council needed to fulfill his request as soon as possible. Others wanted more time to discuss it and figure out where the money was coming from in a budget stripped of every bit of pork and extra paper clip during last year’s budget hearings. They agreed to give Howell a decision in a special meeting at 9 a.m. Tuesday, saying they also needed Hunt present so they’ll know exactly how many staff members he’s brought on board and intends to hire. Like all other county offices, Christmas had to slash any extra spending out of her budget, and now council members are wondering where they’ll get the money to train and pay new workers.

Still, if the council refuses to appropriate the additional funds for new employees, the judge can order them to do it, though he said he’d hate to have to do that. Council members said they’d let him know Tuesday.

There was good news, too, Howell said, as Martin County, along with Crawford, Orange and Pike, will receive a $40,000 grant from the state to provide critical services in family law cases. The money will be administered through Martin County, he added, and will be used to offer case management services to family’s facing social issues including child safety, substance abuse, domestic violence, mental illness or parental conflict.

The money is just for this year, and Howell expects to have the same amount of money to use in 2007, he said.