Three of San Antonio's 10 full-time municipal court judges have been putting in less than five hours of courthouse work per day, according to computerized case-management data obtained by the San Antonio Express-News in an open-records request.

Each of these judges makes $101,290 a year in taxpayer money.

For the month of June, Judge Carla Obledo, who handles arraignments for the San Antonio Municipal Court, averaged three hours and 21 minutes a day at work. She recorded only 57 hours at the courthouse for the entire month, according to the court's computer records.

Judge Daniel Guerrero, who has been responsible for capias warrants and animal-care cases, averaged four hours and 24 minutes per day, and logged less than three hours on eight of his 19 workdays in June.

In addition, the numbers indicate that the city hasn't gotten much value from its Satellite Court, which is on the North Side, at the intersection of Blanco Road and West Avenue. It was created to offer an alternative location for people who live far from downtown, but it's been supplanted by the convenience of interactive video kiosks, which the city rolled out two years ago in various locations.

Satellite Court Judge Linda Conley, who averaged five hours and 17 minutes per day in June, handled only 561 judicial orders for the month. That figure was way below any other municipal court judge and less than one-tenth the orders handled by the city's busiest judge, Dan Kassahn, who handled 6,145 during the same month.

Presiding Judge John Bull acknowledged that the Satellite Court has seen very little foot traffic and said the city plans to shut it down in December. Conley will be reassigned to deal with juvenile cases.

Robert Lipo, who served as a municipal court judge from 2009 to 2013, said, “The waste over there is just incredible. I think it's scamming the taxpayers of the city.

“When I was sent to cover at the Satellite Court, they would open at 9 a.m., close for lunch at 11:30, and then they wouldn't open again until 2:30. That's a helluva lunch.”

Lipo said that because many of the city's full-time municipal judges refuse to work late, a daily 4:30 p.m. docket tends to get dumped on a part-time judge, who gets paid by the hour.

Lipo suggested that the city could comfortably get by with six, instead of nine, full-time associate judges, a move that could save taxpayers more than $300,000 a year.

Municipal judges are appointed by the City Council, and they come up for reappointment every two years.

The municipal court's Tyler software system monitors judges' hours, based on the gap between their login and logout times each day.

Bull said Obledo's reduced hours are at least partly attributable to his efforts to help her cope with the burden of caring for a child with serious health problems.

“That's not on her,” Bull said. “That's on me.”

Bull also said the hours recorded by the court's computer system are “not indicative of when they're actually in the building at work as a judge.”

Lipo disagreed.

“You can't do anything without being on the computer,” Lipo said. “There is no paper record anymore in that courthouse.”

Even if Bull and Lipo differ on how much the court's computer records tell us about judges' schedules, it's indisputable that there are wide disparities between the hours of individual judges — as wide as the difference between full-time and part-time work.

According to the court's computer system, Kassahn worked more than nine hours a day in June, while Judges Peter Zamora, Margarita Pol, and Christine Lacy all logged more than seven hours per day.

On the other extreme, Guerrero, Obledo, Conley and Clarissa Chavarria were credited with hours that looked more like those of part-time workers.

During his four-year stint at Municipal Court, Lipo often clashed with Bull. Lipo said he had a tough time accepting what he viewed as waste and inefficiency in San Antonio's court system.

“John (Bull) always said, 'It's the sweetest gig in the city. Keep your mouth shut.'”

That's something Lipo couldn't do.

ggarcia@express-news.net