GREENBURGH - The failure of the town's justices to secure their court's cash is apparently mirrored by their failure to get along.

Administrative Judge Francis Nicolai said he appointed an outside judge, state Supreme Court Justice Thomas Dickerson, to supervise the court last year after learning there was "some lack of communication" between justice Doris Friedman and Justice Sandra Forster. Nicolai declined to elaborate.

Feiner, a Democrat, also pointed to a confrontation between the justices at the town's Democratic Committee fund-raiser last year at Rini's Ristorante in Elmsford. Feiner said he was not present, but heard about the incident.

Town Board member Steven Bass, also a Democrat, said he was in the room during the May 2003 blowup but didn't witness it clearly.

"What I remember is there were words exchanged, maybe shouting," he said. "It might be there was some light elbowing, but nobody was slugging anybody."

Friedman, 71, declined to discuss the incident or her relationship with Forster, 64. Forster and her lawyer, Deborah Scalise, also declined to comment.

Meanwhile, the Town Board is set to toss another judge into the volatile mix. Last month, Gov. George Pataki signed legislation allowing the town to add a third part-time justice, and the board is scheduled to vote on a companion local law Wednesday.

Officials have cited a huge backlog of traffic cases as a primary reason a third judge was needed, but in an interview last week Feiner said a big part of the problem was Forster's lack of productivity, which he said was documented in a study he commissioned from the town comptroller last year.

Feiner also said that Forster had at times refused to handle after-hours criminal arraignments, and that he complained about her to the state Commission on Judicial Conduct.

"One of the judges is not doing her job," Feiner said.

Neither Forster nor her lawyer would comment. The administrator of the commission, which operates in secret, did not return a telephone call.

Nicolai, the administrative judge, said that he did not entirely agree with Feiner's assertion regarding Forster's productivity, and that Greenburgh's caseload was heavy enough to justify a third justice. The Town Court saw 19,604 cases filed last year, of which 14,263 were handled by Friedman, according to official statistics. Friedman's work included almost 4,000 traffic cases she assumed on a volunteer basis, Feiner said.

The plan to add a third justice has been criticized by Hastings-on-Hudson lawyer Judah Shapiro, a judicial hopeful who contends that the Town Board rigged the date of its vote to prevent him from waging a primary campaign against the board's favored candidate, lawyer and Planning Board member James Hubert of the town's Orchard Park section.