by Michael Anderson

Kosciusko County will not be adding a new court, at least not this year.

Senate Bill 58, sponsored by State Sen. Randy Head, would have added a fifth court to the county.

The proposal called for the creation of Kosciusko Superior Court IV. Currently, the county has a circuit court and three superior courts.

The bill was never heard in the Senate Judiciary Committee and the deadline passed, effectively killing the bill, according to Molly Swigart, media contact for Head.

The deadline was Feb. 23. Swigart said it would take “something significant” to resurrect the bill.

According to a 2015 report by the Indiana Office of Judicial Administration, Kosciusko County judges have the eighth highest case load per judge in the state.

In 2016, the four Kosciusko courts processed just under 11,000 cases, according to numbers provided by the Kosciusko County clerk’s office.