Hawaii Judiciary officials say they need more state funding to replace outdated and unsecure Hawaii island court facilities as well as to keep a program that aims to help young children whose parents are suspected of abuse and neglect.

Whether they’ll get those dollars remains to be seen.

In his annual State of the Judiciary address Wednesday at the state Capitol, Hawaii Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald asked the Legislature for the remaining $55 million it needs to build a new, central Kona courthouse. He cited "severe security, logistical and operational problems" currently faced by the court in West Hawaii. The project has already received $35 million in state funds, he said.

Currently, the Circuit Court on Hawaii island uses three separate buildings, including a former hospital and a former farm-and-garden shop, for its Kona cases, Circuit Court Chief Judge Ronald Ibarra said after Recktenwald’s address.

Those buildings include a temporary cellblock that’s too small, sometimes touching off altercations among inmates, Ibarra said.

Additionally, prospective jurors need to wait outside in the same courtyard that sheriff’s officers walk across with the people they’ve taken into custody, Ibarra said. Those taken into custody further have to use the same restroom as the public, he added.

The Kona buildings, spread across an approximately 6-mile span, help to deal with more than 72,000 court cases (including traffic cases) annually on Hawaii island, according to 2012-2013 Judiciary figures — the most recent ones available. The distance between the buildings further makes security there difficult, Ibarra said.

The state will have to issue bonds to complete the project, Senate President Donna Mercado Kim (D, Kalihi-Moanalua-Halawa) said after Recktenwald’s remarks. Legislators would have to consider how much the state would pay in debt service for those bonds, she added.

"We’ve already started it, so at some point we’re going to finish it," Kim said. "It’s going to come, it’s just how we do it and what’s the timing of it."

The Judiciary hopes the new Kona courthouse will open in 2019.

Meanwhile, the grant money that has funded the Judiciary’s "Zero to Three" program — named for the age range of those it aims to help — is about to run out, Recktenwald said. The program looks to help children who have parents suspected of abuse or known to have abused substances while pregnant. He asked that state lawmakers now fund the program permanently.

According to the Judiciary’s website, the Zero to Three program "provides monthly court hearings and case conferences for selected cases." The program "focuses on ensuring increased parent-child contacts, frequent monitoring of the child’s well-being, and linking families to the early intervention and early learning communities with the goal of achieving permanence for children in a safe and stable home on a timely basis."

With limited dollars, however, Kim told a reporter that the court’s priorities would have to be weighed against the myriad other requests that they’re getting. "The university is asking for a lot of money. There’s a number of issues out there for affordable housing, and the hospitals and now from the courts," Kim said. "We’re going to have to balance all of those and see how much money we have."