District Justice Carmine W. Prestia said his court saw a decrease in total case filings last year.

Prestia, whose court presides over State College, saw a 12 percent decrease in total cases filed. The number of cases fell from 22,280 in 2001 to 19,470 in 2002.

The drop is attributed to a decrease in traffic-related cases, which fell from 17,391 in 2001 to 14,231 in 2002. Violations of the Pennsylvania Vehicle Code make up the majority of cases filed in the district court. Although Prestia was unable to confirm the reason behind the drop, he believes the decrease in unpaid parking citations caused the drop in traffic cases. The court filing system does not differentiate between types of traffic cases, he said.

While traffic cases and miscellaneous dockets (such as protection from abuse orders) decreased, criminal, civil and landlord/tenant and non-traffic cases increased in 2002.

Karen Martin, parking office manager for State College, said citations for unpaid parking tickets issued by the borough actually increased last year.

The number of citations increased from 4,598 in 2001 to 5,020 in 2002 despite the number of parking tickets issued remaining steady, she said.

"The amount of tickets is still about the same that we issue," Martin said.

She said the increase in citations for not paying parking tickets is due to a new computer program that tracks whether tickets are paid.

"We are able to track them better with this system," Martin said.

The number of cases referred to district court from University Park authorities were unavailable. Queries addressed to the parking authority were directed to Penn State Police Services, who referred information requests back to the parking authority.

Despite the decrease in the caseload in his courtroom, Prestia said the difference is not noticeable.

"This is one of the busiest commonwealth court districts in the state," he said.

The court handles about 20,000 cases per year, which Prestia said is about three times the county average.

He said that because of the large volume of cases, the overall drop in the caseload seems negligible.

"It looks the same to us," Prestia said.