Court budget taking shape
Court budget taking shape
Senior Editor
The second phase of raises for a pay equity plan for court employees and raises for judges are not part of contending proposed budgets being debated in the Florida House and Senate in the closing days of the 2015 legislative session.
Nor is $25.6 million requested for court technology improvements part of the spending blueprints. But there are funds to continue with plans for a new courthouse for the Fourth District Court of Appeal. And there are no cutbacks in personnel or spending for ongoing court operations
As this News goes to press, much is up in the air about the budgets.
The major point of dispute did not have anything to do with the courts. Rather, it was over the Senate’s plan to accept federal monies as part of the Affordable Care Act to extend subsidized health insurance to around 800,000 lower-income Floridians. The House spending plan rejected that funding.
With two weeks to go in the session, the two chambers had not appointed conference committees to work out the budget differences. Legislative leaders said a special session for the budget appeared nearly certain.
Bar Legislation Committee Chair Michael Tanner said the Bar will continue to push its and the Supreme Court’s top budget priorities when those conference committees begin to work. He said a great deal of uncertainty remains until those committees are chosen.
“We’re hopeful that we can achieve those in working with the House and Senate leadership, although we recognize that there are still a number of issues to be resolved before we can know that,” Tanner said.
“We don’t know yet if the conferences will go, but the Bar is actively pursuing its budget priorities and judicial and staff pay raises are at the forefront.”
Overall, the Supreme Court requested $579 million for the judicial branch with $85 million coming in new expenditures for new judges, staff for those judges, technology spending, district courts of appeal courthouse projects, pay raises, and other issues.
The preliminary House budget calls for $509.3 million, with $16. 9 million for new spending. The Senate spending plans call for $519.4 million, with $27 million in new spending.
Here are some of the specific requests and how those fared in the two chambers:
* The Supreme Court asked for $5.9 million for the second phase of a program to bring salaries in the judicial branch on a par with those paid in other branches. Lawmakers approved over $9 million last year as part of that request, but neither the House nor Senate budgets included money this year.
* $16.8 million was requested for a new Fourth DCA courthouse. The Senate budget includes that amount, but the House had only $6.5 million for the second phase of construction.
* The court asked for $9.1 million for remodeling and upgrades to the Third DCA courthouse. The Senate put in $5 million and the House had $2.7 million.
* The court asked for $9.9 million for three new circuit judgeships and 55 additional county judgeships. Neither House nor Senate had money for new judges.
* The court asked for $25.6 million to implement its strategic technology plan, $2 million for law clerks to support death penalty litigation, $1.2 million for trial courts’ general counsel support, $5.6 million in case management support services, and $1.4 million for court interpreting resources. The House budget included the money for interpreting services and $2.9 million for case management. The Senate didn’t fund any of those requests.
The $25.6 million for technology is important as the courts try to modernize and bring uniformity in operations around the state, according to the Office of the State Courts Administrator. According to information from OSCA, not funding that request creates “the potential that: 1) technology will be funded in a reactive rather than proactive approach, exposing the state court system to increased risks for large system failures; 2) differences in county funding for technology will continue to create inconsistencies in the tools that trial courts use to deliver services to citizens around the state; 3) the state court system will remain in the position of filing piecemeal requests with the Legislature to implement, support, and refresh various technology projects; and 4) the citizens and court users will be negatively affected by the use of paper or antiquated trial court technology.”
OSCA added that $3.5 million of that request was to promote security in the electronic systems that handle sentence modification paperwork between the courts and clerks of court.
That security has been a high-profile issue since someone slipped paperwork into the non-electronic system a couple years ago that resulted in two inmates being erroneously released from a state prison..
