AUGUSTA -- Electronic recording machines might replace court reporters in many of the state's courtrooms.

Court administrators have provided pre-layoff notification to seven of the state's 16 court reporters.

The court reporters are state employees paid to transcribe court proceedings.

James T. Glessner, state court administrator, said the staff reduction will save the judiciary branch an estimated $600,000 a year.

"We're working with the employee union on this," he said. "We have a dollar amount we have to save in our budget, so we wanted to clarify the process by which these layoffs go into effect."

The layoffs would take effect July 1 with the start of the new two-year budget cycle.

Glessner said the remaining court reporters will handle some cases while others will be recorded electronically.

Penney Whitney-Asdourian, a judicial branch employee and chief steward for the union, said the state has asked to reopen the contract and make changes that would save money elsewhere and allow it to retain more court reporters.

Whitney-Asdourian said the first session is set for Tuesday.

However, she said the bottom line is that some court reporters will lose their jobs.

One of the court reporters who received a notice said she preferred not to comment publicly. Several others did not respond to requests for comment.

Glessner said the notices were sent out to those with the least seniority.

Whitney-Asdourian said one court reporter who received a notice has been working for the state for 19 years. The most recent hire came in 2006.

"Machines are not a substitute for human beings, in this case," said Tim Belcher, executive director of the Maine State Employees Association. "Being able to turn to a live human being and having that person tell you what a witness said a half-hour ago is a very essential function."

Glessner said other cost-cutting measures include not filling 20 open positions, including court clerks, marshals, administrators and a district court associate judge's post.

He said the judicial branch must make cuts totaling $2.1 million over the next year.

Jeffrey Henthorn, who is in charge of court reporter program, said the cuts are part of the budget established by the Legislature.

"It is a result of a loss of funding for the next two years, effective July 1," Henthorn said. "There's been a real loss of money available to the judicial branch."

"At the time of budget discussions, there was very little notice that this was going to be a proposal as the looming deadline approached," Whitney-Asdourian said. "Nobody saw it coming."

She said the court reporters pride themselves on being keepers of the record.

"They're concerned about how they're going to capture the record, especially in jury trials," she said. "We have no proven experience with regard to capturing it by any method other than with an official court reporter."

Whitney-Asdourian said having fewer court reporters will negatively affect superior court clerk's offices.

"If there's not a court reporter in there creating a record, there will have to be an employee in there running the electronic machine," she said.

Betty Adams -- 621-5631

badams@centralmaine.com