Seven weeks after they adopted the 2013 budget, Lawrence County Commissioners are facing court orders from two officeholders that could make significant changes in the distribution of funds for the year.

Lawrence County Municipal Judge Donald R. Capper and Lawrence County Prosecutor Brigham Anderson have officially rejected the allocation they received from the commissioners and have court-ordered higher budgets. Capper sent his order to the commission last week; however, Anderson ordered his budget on Dec. 18, two days before the commissioners adopted the 2013 appropriations.

“Those judges can trump anything we have done,” Commission President Bill Pratt said. “We have to do what a court order says, if we have to unappropriate money from someone else, if the money has not already been spent and in January it hasn’t.”

Capper wants $72,060 more than the $433,339 the commissioners budgeted for his court. This is $15,860 more than was spent to operate the Chesapeake-based court in 2012.

The prosecutor wants $929,903 in 2013 or approximately $188,917 more than the $740,986 the commission allocated for his office this year. That request is $10,819 more than what was spent in that office in 2012. The commissioners’ allocation for 2013 is $109,957 less than what they budgeted for the prosecutor in 2012.

Right now the county only has $78,000 that has not been appropriated, Pratt said.

“The appropriations are not finished until the year is over,” he said. “Officeholders need to look at when your money will run out. Capper’s allotment may run out in September, whether he waits that long to take some action against us.”

Pratt said the commissioners plan to meet with Capper and Anderson in the near future to discuss their budgets.