Counting casualties: court budget crisis costs 153 employees their jobs, process expected to slow.

In the Fourth Circuit, the Duval County Drug Court--a stellar national model to other cities trying to start their own programs--will shut down.

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In the Ninth Circuit, even though the chief judge says "the lifeblood of Orlando is toll roads," a cut in traffic hearing officers means they will likely no longer be able to handle hearings on toll violations or parking tickets. If his appeal to get financial assistance to pay for hearings from the East-West Expressway Authority, Department of Transportation, and other municipalities fails, contested tickets will be dismissed.

In the Sixth Circuit, the St. Petersburg law library, a popular courthouse resource for lawyers and pro se litigants to get information in the middle of hearings, will shut down and give away its law books because there's no money to keep them current. Dependency Drug Court and Juvenile Drug Court, though very successful programs, will close.

At the Fourth District Court of Appeal, a major reduction in staff means public areas of the court--including the clerk's office, library, and entrance--will close an hour early at 4 p.m. No filings will be accepted at the courthouse after 4 p.m., there will be no drop box, and the court can no longer afford to pay $3,500 a year for its post office box.

When counting casualties of Florida's court budget crisis, those are some of the details. After slashing $11.5 million in salaries, the latest numbers reveal 276.5 total full-time equivalency positions have been eliminated: 223 positions in the trial courts; 24.5 at the district courts of appeal; 24 at the Office of State Courts Administrator; and five at the Florida Supreme Court.

In the Ninth Circuit, Chief Judge Belvin Perry, chair of the Trial Court Budget Commission, has had to make hard decisions to cut 19 positions, made up of case managers, magistrates, court administrators, and law clerks.

"It is never easy to tell someone their job, in these tough economic times--when jobs are not plentiful, and everything costs more, and you have to pay $4 a gallon for gasoline--to tell someone, suddenly, 'You don't have a job and you don't have medical insurance,'" Perry said.

"One of the reasons people work for state government is job security. Even though salaries are not high, they always figured a state job was one you could trust to be around, with medical benefits. Now they've found out that in our government jobs, we've been victimized."

After factoring in vacant positions frozen for the past year during bleak economic times and people who stepped up to resign or take early retirement, State Courts Administrator Lisa Goodner said about 125 actual employees in the trial courts will be laid off, 14 people will lose their jobs at the DCAs, and 14 will be let go at OSCA--effective July 1.

Only the Florida Supreme Court managed to avoid laying off staff, through a combination of cutting positions of recently departed staff and holding open vacant positions, including the marshal's position--a "fairly highly paid position," Goodner said.

The preceding numbers of actual layoffs are "based on a preliminary plan" that has not yet been verified, she said, as well as pending legislative approval to shift dollars from the operations budget to the salary budgets to save some positions at the DCAs and OSCA.

Second DCA Judge Stevan Northcutt, chair of the DCA Budget Commission, said losing two out of eight central staff attorneys at the Second DCA is "going to decimate our central staff function."

That means cases involving post-conviction relief and emergency writs will likely be "pushed into judicial suites," and that will "slow up disposition of other cases. It's going to gum up the works." Northcutt said.

"It's amazing how you try to scratch things together. The sums of money in the larger scheme of the state budget are nothing, but it's big to us," Northcutt said. "We are doing the best we can system-wide. The staff here at the Second has reasonably good morale under the circumstances. We do have a sense we're all in this together, as frightening and unhappy as it can be."

Spread out among the 20 judicial circuits, the trial courts have eliminated 87 case managers, 22 magistrates, 67 court administrators, 28 law clerks, and 19 exceptions, where the TCBC allowed reducing court reporting staff and services. In each circuit, chief judges have had to grapple with how to deal with the cuts.

In the Fourth Circuit, Chief Judge Donald Moran, who has personally presided over Drug Court since its inception in 1994, made the difficult decision to end the program--ironically during National Drug Court Month--when faced with the grim realities of eliminating 12 jobs.

"I could continue funding treatment for drug addicts, or I could roll that money back into the court system to fund the core elements of the court," Moran told The Florida Times-Union. "I just had to make a decision. It's a nicety, not a necessity. You have to meet your responsibilities first."

In the Second Judicial Circuit, where five of six counties are rural, Chief Judge Charles Francis said cutting a total of six FTEs may not sound like much, but it is critical--especially the loss of family law case managers and a general magistrate, who handled 200 cases, including a lot of pro se litigant cases. Now, he said, already overloaded judges will have to pick up those cases.

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"Is it a catastrophe? No. Will it hurt us in the long run? Yes. Will it slow down the processing of cases? Yes," Francis said.

Also in jeopardy, Francis said, is an array of specialty courts: Felony Drug Court, Misdemeanor Drug Court, Juvenile Drug Court, Mental Health Court, and Check Diversion Court.

All are successful programs, Francis said, but they take time and resources. Second Circuit State Attorney Willie Meggs and Public Defender Nancy Daniels are "telling me they might not be able to staff them and might have to have furloughs. They told me it's a real possibility. They are saying their case loads are so heavy, we may have to go back to regular divisions," Francis said.

While resources are going down, case loads are going up, Francis said.

"We know with foreclosures, hearing times are critical. Foreclosures are a classic situation where case managers move the cases forward. We should be adding case managers for that kind of case," he said.

In the Sixth Circuit, Chief Judge Robert Morris is mourning the loss of 17 positions. Because they already had 12 vacancies they kept open, they had to actually terminate five employees.

"It's required us to scale back. We have closed the St. Pete law library. It is in the courthouse and a resource for lawyers and pro se litigants in the middle of hearings and trials, to look up something. It's been there my whole career. I was studying there when I began my career as an assistant state attorney in 1980."

Morris has also had to scale back Drug Court and the Unified Family Court, and completely shut down Juvenile Drug Court and Dependency Drug Court.

"It's very hard to do. They are very successful programs," Morris said. "If anything, we would like the resources to make the programs bigger, not smaller."

When Ninth Circuit Judge Perry details the fallout of the budget cuts, he talks about "one of my biggest pet peeves--the unfunded mandate of appeals from county court" that are handled by circuit judges. Now that the county court jurisdiction involves disputes up to $15,000, he said there are more appeals of legitimate issues and it's not really "small claims" anymore.

"Whenever you have to wait for an exaggerated period of time, when you take issue with a decision in county court, you are going to have to wait longer. The wait is too long now, because it's never been funded," Perry said, noting it is now taking a year to 18 months to handle county court appeals.

"I have at least six cases in my circuit that go back to 2006."

Perry said his circuit is also inundated with prisoner petitions that are screened initially by staff attorneys--and he is losing two staff attorneys. That means there will only be 12 staff attorneys that serve as law clerks for 65 judges.

"As you know, as prison admissions go up, the number of those petitions goes up. We used to try to get them out within 90 days. Now it's six months to a year. And it will be slowed down further," Perry said.

Seven lost positions in court administration, Perry said, will be felt in many ways.

"Ever go to a football game and wonder how all that stuff gets put in place? Court administrators are like that, working behind the scenes to make sure courtrooms are scheduled, and bills get paid, and support work is done for judges. Some things we just flat out will not be able to do."

Expect more phone calls to judges to go to voice mail, Perry said.

"We're down to the wire. The bottom line is I've lost 19 bodies to get the people's work done. When you were already somewhat short-staffed, then you suddenly wake up and you are even shorter. You can only ask people to double-up and triple-up so much. Some things will take longer and some things we just will not be able to get done. We will begin to see the impact slowly starting in July.

"As time goes on, in the fall, everyone who uses the courts will see concrete evidence of these cuts."

By Jan Pudlow

Senior Editor