RUMFORD – Maine’s judicial system will have to hire its own marshals for Rumford and Paris district courts come the end of December, according to Oxford County Sheriff Wayne Gallant.

Due mostly to budgetary reasons, Gallant said last week that he is canceling his department’s contract with the state as of Dec. 31 to provide security using five deputies in the two district courts.

“We’ve been going in the hole on this,” Gallant said of the county’s judicial security division. “I’ve been looking at my budget numbers and I’m not getting the revenue to justify the service. It’s been in the red by a couple thousand dollars.”

In 2007, Gallant budgeted $57,859 for court security and was reimbursed $54,528 by the state at $4,544 a month from July 2006 to July 2007. This year, he budgeted $56,174. The current state reimbursement amount wasn’t readily available.

Part of the costs involve training, uniforms, etc., for the five deputies or judicial marshals, who provide court security and protection for judges.

Two judicial marshals asked to retire earlier this year. However, Gallant said he talked them into volunteering to stay until the end of December.

Hiring two new judicial marshals to replace them would have significantly increased wages. That’s another reason why he decided to cancel the contract.

The other three judicial marshals will be assigned to other sheriff’s office branches like corrections and the civil division, which is responsible for serving papers in the noncriminal aspects of the judicial system.

Michael Coty, director of judicial marshals and emergency services in Augusta, said Wednesday afternoon that he understood why Gallant ended the contract.

“It doesn’t make a lot of money and, it is hard to budget for it and a headache for him,” Coty said. “His predecessor, Sheriff (Lloyd) ‘Skip’ Herrick only provided coverage for the district court and we did it for superior court. But they probably do not have the resources now.”

Neither does the state, for that matter, since Gov. John Baldacci ordered $80 million in cutbacks in state programs due to the nation’s tanking economy that’s zipping into recession.

“We’re operating with a state mandate that a judge doesn’t go on the bench without protection. But we don’t have the money to implement it. We know what we want to do and how to do it, but the way the current budget is now, it doesn’t look good,” Coty said.

That’s why he’ll likely use existing officers from the Lewiston courts system to fill next year’s judicial marshal jobs in the Rumford and Paris district courts.

On average in both courts, there are 22 to 25 court dates per month, some of which require multiple officers, according to the Oxford County Sheriff’s Office Web site.