Court budget reduced.

Legislators working to reduce the state budget by more than $1 billion trimmed some muscle--but not too much--from the state court system's funding when they concluded a special budget cutting legislative session last month.

When it was all over, the courts gave up about 2 percent of their funding or $6.8 million, according to State Courts Administrator Lisa Goodner. That was less than the originally anticipated 4 percent reductions the courts were told to expect and far below the 10 percent cuts Gov. Charlie Crist asked all state agencies and branches to prepare for.

"The legislative leadership responded very favorably to the cuts we proposed for the third branch," Chief Justice Fred Lewis said. "I think everyone recognized that our proposals were a fair and reasonable response to the state's budgetary problems."

Chief Justice Lewis said the reductions will result in "some serious cuts" on the administrative side of court operations while minimizing the impact on case dispositions as much as possible.

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"It really is more of a scaling back of administrative activities," Goodner said.

Utility bills, money spent on Supreme Court committee support, state travel, and official business are the types of expenditures that will be impacted. Goodner said the district courts of appeal are set to reduce their operating budgets, collectively affecting their general operating expenses.

"These are things we can do, certainly, but I don't want anybody to get the impression that we have so much money in the branch that when we make reductions nobody feels it, because that's not the case," Goodner said, adding the court started out with a "very lean budget."

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"At one point we were up to 4.2 [percent] with some of the earlier numbers, but we came down quite a bit--our cuts came in the more manageable 2 percent range," she said.

Thirteenth Circuit State Attorney Mark Ober, president of the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association, said state attorneys in all 20 circuits also felt the pinch.

The budget cuts for the state attorneys amounted to a little less than $6 million.

"It was in the high fives," said Dick Donahoe, executive director for Ober's office and who worked on the budget issue. "About $5.5 million statewide."

"Were we happy with it? No," Ober said. "But it could have been worse."

Compared to other agencies, Donahoe said, the state attorneys came out very well.

"We would've preferred no cut at all, but we understand the position the state's in and the state was very cooperative in minimizing the impact to our organizations," Donahoe said.

"The budgets of the state attorneys are 95.4 percent--that's a statewide average--salary and benefits," said Donahoe, adding the legislature is "allowing us to take our cuts in whatever bucket--be it in salary and benefits or operations--that a particular circuit is comfortable with."

"That's a benefit to us," Ober added. "We appreciated them doing that because they've given us the autonomy to run our individual offices as we see fit."

Eighth Circuit Public Defender Rick Parker, president of the Florida Public Defender Association, said the PDs' budget cuts came in at about $5 million. Parker said some circuits took heavier hits than others, but the pinch will be felt statewide. The bulk of those reductions were taken from their operating budgets.

As for the courts, "These cuts were done to minimize the disruption to services, and I think we can feel pretty confident that we have minimized any impact on case processing within the court system," Goodner said. "We've protected those resources."

Goodner said the trial courts--where the largest portion of the court budget goes--were able to make a lot of their adjustments through shifts to trust funds.

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The trial courts did, however, have to give up their contingency funds, typically used to cover unanticipated shortfalls for payment of due process services like court reporters, expert witnesses, and court interpreters--"things that the courts are required to provide for indigent litigants," Goodner said.

"That contingency fund no longer exists," Goodner said, adding, however, that sounds worse than it actually is. "While we always want to be able to plan for contingencies, the courts have never had to access that contingency fund in the years since Revision 7 was implemented. We felt it was one of the things that we could sacrifice in this economic situation."

Budget cuts also mean managing reductions in the form of money available for paying civil traffic infraction hearing officers. The courts also gave up funding for 10 of the 20 new case managers the legislature had recently authorized.

Other reductions came from court travel budgets and expenditures.

"We've cancelled a lot of travel," Goodner said. "We had a trial court chief judges meeting that was cancelled; DCA meetings have been cancelled and held via video conference or by telephone instead of face-to-face in order to conserve our dollars."

Goodner said her office worked closely with legislative members and their staffs to minimize the financial impact on the courts.

"We're particularly grateful for the leadership that Rep. [Dick] Kravitz [R-Orange Park] and Sen. [Victor] Crist [R-Tampa] exerted in terms of protecting the third branch," she said.

RELATED ARTICLE: Despite state budget shortfalls, courts still plan to pursue pay equity issues.

Eclipsed by ongoing news of the state's budget crisis, Florida courts still have a desperate need for a pay equity plan that will compensate court employees similar to what they could earn from other government agencies.

Eleventh Judicial Circuit Chief Judge Joseph Farina brought that message to the Bar Board of Governors when he welcomed them at the board's recent meeting in Coconut Grove.

"We desperately need the legislature to pass a court employee pay plan that is going to provide our court employees with a just wage," he said. "I'm not talking about judges' salaries and benefits. I'm talking about judicial assistants. I'm talking about court interpreters ... and court staff."

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Farina said the legislative and executive branches pay their employees higher wages for similar work, resulting in difficulties for the judicial branch to retain its staff. He reported that judicial assistants for county judges start at $32,000 per year and those for circuit judges at $34,000. Court interpreters start at $33,000, while lawyers hired as law clerks for circuit judges start at $43,000.

The result?

"I'm going through my second judicial assistant in three years because they have gone, rightly, to greener pastures," Farina said.

It can take six months to fill a court interpreter vacancy, he added, and there's a 30 percent vacancy rate for judicial law clerks in Miami-Dade County.

Farina asked for two things:

* Continued Bar support for the Supreme Court's efforts in the legislature for a pay enhancement package to bring court staff salaries in line with other public agencies.

* Include lawyers who work for the courts, such as clerks, in any program approved by the legislature to help repay law school loans.

The legislature has considered, but not passed, a program to repay law school loans for assistant state attorneys, assistant public defenders, and assistant attorneys general.

"I'm hoping our Bar will lobby the legislature to see that our judicial branch lawyers are included in that very important loan forgiveness program," Farina said.

Bar President Frank Angones thanked Farina for his input and noted that the Bar has adopted a legislative position supporting the Supreme Court's push for better pay for judicial staff.

"The No. 1 goal and legislative priority of The Florida Bar is just that," he said.

Board members also discussed the issue later in the board meeting, with some noting the state is in a budget crisis, with the legislature meeting at the same time as the board to cut the budget and with more budget reductions projected for next year. But they also reiterated Bar support for the pay plan and said the Bar will continue to promote it, even in the difficult fiscal climate.

By Theresa E. Davis

Assistant Editor