HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania's county governments asked the state Supreme Court on Monday to force the state to assume greater administrative and financial responsibility for district and county courts.

The County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania wants the high court to enforce provisions of its 1996 ruling that ordered more centralized administration and state funding to ensure uniform justice across the 67 counties.

Doug Hill, the association's executive director, said the court action was taken after counties had difficulty getting the state to underwrite a mandate to make all district attorneys work full-time.

He said most other states provide oversight and funding for their local courts.

"First, it does insulate us from some of the increase in cost that we've not been able to absorb," Hill said. "Second, it does mean the court is funded entirely out of a statewide fund, so the decisions on staffing levels are not driven by a local president judge."

If the counties get their way, Hill said, their role in local courts would be limited to providing security, managing the buildings and performing a handful of other duties.

The association asked the court to address funding of support staff for common pleas judges and district judges, domestic relations, parole offices and court-related row offices such as prothonotary.

Chuck Ardo, a spokesman for Gov. Ed Rendell, called the filing "just another chapter in an ongoing dispute that's been under litigation for years. The ultimate decision will have to come from the Supreme Court."

The commissioners' association said the state's failure to implement the court's 1996 ruling has required them to fund the court system "to the financial detriment of the counties' constituents."

The case goes back to a 1987 Supreme Court decision that said uniformity in courts across all counties was required. But that ruling did not alter the existing funding approach.

When the Legislature did not act in response, the county commissioners obtained another favorable ruling in 1992. That led in 1996 to the appointment of retired Justice Frank J. Montemuro Jr. to study the matter and issue a set of recommendations, which he did the following year.

The Legislature in 1999 passed a law to make county court administrators and certain deputy administrators state employees, but most elements of the Montemuro report were ignored.

In a dissent to the 1996 decision, Justice Ronald Castille said the majority's approach violated separation of powers between branches of government, calling it "the very definition of judicial tyranny."

"Such usurpation of authority provides the judicial branch with unfettered power to spend revenue as it sees fit in the name of a unified judicial system without being directly answerable to the source of the revenue, the citizens," wrote Castille, who is now the court's chief justice.