The Auburn City Council decides a contentious issue Monday night — whether to stay with the City’s municipal court or contract with King County District Court for judicial services.

City leaders say it is all about achieving “new efficiencies,” through alternative approaches, getting judges who won’t, at the City’s expense, crowd the SCORE jail in Des Moines with Auburn inmates, and “the ongoing and changing judicial responsibilities with which the City is involved.”

In plainer terms — going with King County would save the City bucks.

Municipal Court Judge Patrick Burns, court employees and other opponents of the change aren’t buying it. They say court costs have stayed about the same in recent years, but that City leaders, principally Mayor Pete Lewis, are making the Auburn court the scapegoat for the money pit that they, opponents of the change, say the new SCORE jail in Des Moines has become.

Their argument — making it all about money masks an unpleasant reality — that the residents of Auburn will get a poorer court system out of the deal, one that would process offenders machine-like and quickly put them back on the street where they would commit more crimes, with fewer and poorer programs to turn them from the bad.

The meeting is at 7:30 p.m. in the Council Chambers of Auburn City Hall at 25 West Main.

A decision to go with King County District Court’s proposal would be subject to the impacts of collective bargaining.

Auburn has had its own court system since 1996.