May 15, 2003 Gary Blankenship Senior Editor Regular News Court funding plan left in budget limbo Senior EditorCollateral damage from the stalemate of the Florida House and Senate over the 2003-04 state budget has apparently also derailed bills needed to implement a state take-over of trial court funding next year.The actions in the closing days of the session present a double whammy to the court system. For the 2003-04 budget, the Senate and particularly the House had proposed steep cuts in court funding because of the tight state budget. The special session necessary to resolve the budget issues means the courts will have less time before the July 1 start of the fiscal year to adjust to whatever the final spending reductions are.The trial court funding issue is potentially even more serious. Under a 1998 constitutional amendment — known as Revision 7 to Article V — the state is mandated by July 1, 2004, to take over more funding from the counties of circuit and county courts. Lawmakers had expected to approve a blueprint this year delineating what the state would pay for and what the counties would be responsible for, and also detailing how the state would come up with the money needed.The two chambers were close to an agreement — it had actually been announced as ready for passage on the Senate floor — when the bill fell apart over about $1.5 million of funding in the $500 million plan. Officials first said it was unlikely to be taken up in a special session later this year, but as the session ended there was speculation it could be included in a special session.“We needed that [Revision 7] implementation bill,” said Sixth Circuit Judge Susan Schaeffer, chair of the Supreme Court’s Trial Court Budget Commission. “In my opinion, it’s just disastrous not to have it for planning purposes and budgeting purposes.”“We’re flirting with a major train wreck disaster of the system,” said Tallahassee attorney Fred Baggett, who represents the Florida Association of Court Clerks. “The whole concept of doing it this year was to test whether what we will be implementing will work.”The last week of the regular session proved a seesaw for those involved in the Revision 7 and court budget issues. On Tuesday morning, April 29, Sen. Rod Smith, D-Gainesville, chair of the Subcommittee on Article V Implementation and Judiciary, and Rep. Holly Benson, R-Pensacola, chair of the House Select Committee on Article V, appeared on the Senate floor to announced an agreement had been reached on Revision 7. They got a standing ovation.Then shortly after noon, Senate President Jim King, R-Jacksonville, announced that budget negotiations with the House had fallen through and a special session would be required. A couple hours after that, it was announced that there was no agreement after all over Revision 7.The next day, leaders were still holding out hope the disagreements would be resolved, if not in regular session then in a special session, after the budget differences were settled. “We don’t have a budget and until we have a budget, there are certain major issues that won’t be resolved in this session,” Benson said that day. “We are pretty close to final agreement and had a few last small issues to resolve but once the budget negotiations ceased, then the Article V [Revision 7] negotiations ceased.”By Thursday, May 1, though, leaders were saying the issue might be dead for the year and not brought up in any special session. By Friday, though, there was speculation it might be addressed in a special session.Sen. Smith detailed how the Revision 7 negotiations broke down, adding he thought all the problems had been ironed out between House and Senate and then questions arose over two final, minor details.On one of those, Smith wanted to raise the amount of court filing fees that go to the judicial education program from $2.50 to $3. And Rep. Bruce Kyle, R-Ft. Myers, chair of the House Appropriations Committee, asked that half of the $40 levied on indigents when they get a public defender go from a trust fund that helps pay for public defender operation into the state’s general revenue fund. The total amount involved was about $1.5 million, of which $363,000 was for the education fund.Smith, a former Eighth Circuit State Attorney, said he eventually offered to drop the hike in the education fund fee but balked at taking the money from public defenders, adding he could see no reason for the change except as a punitive measure.“Their Appropriations chair said no, I said, ‘You understand this is going to blow up a $500 million deal and it seems like a silly way to blow up a deal’ I walked out and I haven’t heard from him since,” Smith said on May 1. “I was stunned.. . . We should have had in place a funding plan this year so we could test it next year. But as usual for the legislature, we’re going to wait until next year and I have great trepidation about this.”Calls to Kyle’s office in the hectic last session days were not returned.The Senate passed its version, SB 1492, on May 1 with both Smith and Senate President Jim King saying they did not expect any further action from the House. “This bill should have happened,” Smith told his fellow senators. “Next year we’re going to be under a gun that’s going to be a $500 million problem.”King added that after being assured there was a deal, the Senate was told the representatives who negotiated it didn’t have the final authority to cement the agreement. “It’s doubly disappointing to me,” he said.Schaeffer and Baggett outlined some of the problems delaying Revision 7 legislation will cause.Schaeffer noted that county commission, chief judges, state attorney, public defenders, and court clerks are already preparing their 2003-04 budgets, which will be adopted in September and go into effect October 1. The last three months of the year are July, August, and September 2004, which means without a blueprint those agencies don’t know what the state will be paying for and consequently face massive budget uncertainties.“The chief judges don’t know what to ask for, the clerks don’t now what to ask for, the state attorneys don’t know what to ask for,” she said. If the agencies budget based on the tentative agreement nearly reached this year and then that changed, “that could mean huge layoffs or huge firings, because the counties wouldn’t be budgeting for those employees and the state wouldn’t be budgeting for them.”Schaeffer noted this year a major contention, especially with the House, was whether the state should pay for case management and court administration expenses. It was finally decided to include them, but that could change next year, or funding could be at a reduced level.Likewise, currently programs to help pro se litigants are usually split between clerks and court case managers. The House legislation gave all that to the clerks, while the Senate kept the existing model. Leaving that unresolved, Schaeffer said, makes it impossible to budget for those programs.Another difficulty will be with personnel, she said. Around 1,000 county employees around the state are expected to become court system employees, but without the guidelines the state can’t determine which employees will transfer and begin the formidable administrative work needed. Likewise, the guidelines may cause some employees to lose their jobs, but until they are adopted, there’s no way to determine who or give employees advance warning they should seek other employment.The Trial Court Budget Commission also is required to meet September 15 and prepare its 2004-05 budget. “What do we budget for?” Schaeffer said. “I guess what we budget for is everything that we want, everything that the courts hope the House and Senate will fund.”Baggett said the clerks will now face almost insurmountable problems next year.“The clerks will not know what their funding sources will be for their funding, will not know what fees they will be charging, will not even know what duties they have” until a couple months before the July 1, 2004, transfer date, he said. “The whole concept of doing it this year will be to test whether what we will be implementing will work.”The legislature originally began working on the funding transfer in 2000, intending to phase it in over several years. Increasing budget problems led the legislature to put it off until this year, and now, Baggett said, the phase in will be “from July 1, 2004, to July 1, 2004.”He added that while he doesn’t know why the agreement over the bill fell apart, “I cannot believe it had to do over the money. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense.. . . Out of a $500 million package, it was a matter of leaving it the way it is for a couple million dollars.”Baggett also said the final package represented a great deal of work by all the interested parties as well as legislators. “The shock and surprise for me is that what was crafted together was acceptable to all the stakeholders, the courts, the clerks, the state attorneys, and the public defenders. And that’s a hard thing to do when you talk about shifting all of the dollars in the system.“My fear is once we leave, that package starts to unravel. Once you go home, the constituencies of the stakeholder groups start picking at it. We’ve all seen that happen before.” 2003-04 BudgetWhile the courts grapple with the Revision 7 issues, they’ll also be preparing for the upcoming special session on the budget. Both the House and Senate had proposed cuts for the court system, with the House cuts being more severe.But Schaeffer said those plans may be irrelevant once the serious budget negotiations start. She noted that if the House and Senate, which were about $1 billion apart on their budgets, compromised down the middle, the House would have an extra $500,000 to spend and could allocate some of that to the courts, improving its fiscal plan. At the same time, the Senate might have to make cuts to its plan.“We know we had some major cuts,” Schaeffer said. “We have been working on those, we had been discussing what those would mean. They seem to understand and they said, ‘If we can get some more money, we appreciate your problem and we’ll see what we can do.’”The Office of the State Courts Administrator prepared an analysis of how the separate Senate and House budgets would impact the courts. That includes:• For the Supreme Court, the Senate plan would cut 1.7 percent of the budget, necessitating one or two job losses. The House cuts the court by 9.3 percent, which would cost seven staff attorneys and two judicial assistants. The House bill would eliminate one fourth of the legal and administrative support for the court, and do away with the central staff attorneys who handle about 50 percent of the court’s caseload. “The House budget would increase the time it takes to process appeals, especially in capital cases, and would reverse the recent successful efforts by the Supreme Court to reduce its backlog,” the analysis said.• For the district courts of appeal, the House made no cuts, while the Senate would eliminate 17 law clerk positions and reduce the budget 4.5 percent. That would, the analysis said, increase the workload for state attorneys and the Attorney General when they use the courts, and slow down the handling of petitions and appeals. That in turn would increase the cost for private litigants.• For circuit and county courts, the Senate would cut the circuits by 4.7 percent and 31 positions, and county courts by 1.6 percent. The House would cut the circuits by 57 positions and 5.6 percent and the county courts by 2.1 percent. The Senate plan would eliminate 31 deputy court administrators, which would place more administrative work on judges and give them less time for processing and adjudicating cases. They could also lead to further layoffs and suspension of some court services. The House would eliminate 37 deputy court administrators and 20 juvenile alternative sanctions coordinators. Both would increase the workload for judges and slow down their handling of cases. In addition, the House would eliminate all civil traffic hearing officers, which would delay traffic cases and increase the workload for county judges. The House would also cut $3.4 million for operational efficiencies, which would suspend some court services and lead to the layoff of another 74 employees, the analysis said.• For the Office of State Courts Administrator, the Senate would cut five to seven positions and $429,000 (4.8 percent), which would adversely impact the office supporting functions for administration, technology, legal, and policy services. The House would cut the office by 28 positions, or over 20 percent of the staff, and its budget by 18.2 percent. The OSCA personnel office would be cut, making it hard to provide support for the court system’s 3,000-plus employees, and legislative affairs and communications offices would be eliminated. That would make it hard to keep the courts and judges informed about legislative activities and to respond to requests from lawmakers. The biggest impact would cut employees who collect, compile, analyze, and report court statistics. “These statistics are used to assess workload needs, certify new judges, develop performance measures, and respond to information inquiries from the legislature, media, and the public,” the analysis said.The legislature will begin a two-week special session to work on the budget on May 12 and is expected to address other issues, including workers’ compensation, medical malpractice, and perhaps Revision 7, in that or later special sessions. Court funding plan left in budget limbo
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