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Judges Fear Budget Crunch On Courts

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By DAVID SOMMER, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 21, 2008

CLEARWATER - The specter of shuttered courthouses from Key West to Pensacola was raised Wednesday after local chief judges said they and others were told to furlough key employees to save about $17 million statewide.

In Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas counties, that could mean closing circuit courts for 22 days and county courts for up to 58 days before the current fiscal year ends on June 30, chief judges said.

A state Senate panel chaired by Sen. Victor Crist, R-Tampa, is scheduled to vote on the matter today, the judges said.

"I'm gonna do everything I can to keep the courthouse open and to provide essential services," Hillsborough Chief Judge Manuel Menendez Jr. said Wednesday. "But furloughing state-funded employees means we're closing the courthouse. Surely Crist doesn't realize the magnitude of the situation."

The legislator said he is well aware of the situation and that judges were put on notice in October that they could expect a 4 percent cut in their state funding for the current fiscal year.

Menendez and Pinellas-Pasco Chief Judge Robert Morris Jr. disputed that and said they learned of the planned cutback after being summoned to Tallahassee along with the rest of the state's chief judges on Tuesday.

Crist said the chief judges were in Tallahassee to make their own budget requests for next fiscal year.

"In October, we took 2 percent from everybody and told everybody to rebudget immediately to provide for an additional 4 percent holdback," Crist said. "They are not being warned again. Now, they are being told."

Reduced tax revenue caused by the declining economy is forcing the budget shortfall upon the state, Crist said. His committee, which is responsible for funding all justice-related entities including prisons, prosecutors, public defenders and the Florida Attorney General's Office, is looking at a total shortfall of $66.2 million for the rest of the fiscal year, he said.

The court system was underfunded through most of former Gov. Jeb Bush's administration and has been granted a 12 percent overall budget increase in the past 24 months, Crist said. Other justice entities have grown at a much slower rate and have been asked to make deeper cuts.

"We've held the courts in a favored place" and tried to limit any reductions, the senator said. "If 24 months ago they could make do without shutting things down, why can't they do it today?"

Morris said the 12 percent increase paid for hiring a backlog of new judges after years of neglect for the judiciary. The state constitution prohibits the involuntary furlough of elected judges. The Legislature is mandating that the 4 percent cutback, which amounts to $1 million for Pasco-Pinellas, be accomplished by furloughing lower-ranking court employees, he said.

However, judges on Wednesday talked about taking voluntary salary cuts or furloughs, Morris said. Court employees, 75 percent of whom make less than $40,000 a year, include judicial assistants, court reporters, night traffic court magistrates, family court hearing officers and court administrative personnel, he said.

Menendez said his judges are considering taking turns answering telephones if they have to. Both local chief judges said it would be impossible to hold court hearings without court reporters and other support staff.

That means no child custody hearings, no divorce court, no murder trials, no delinquent tenant evictions and no emergency domestic violence injunctions, among a host of court activities that will have to be canceled, Morris said.

"Jails will continue to fill up with no process for emptying" them. Sexual predators finishing their prison terms will not be in custody while prosecutors take civil action against them, he said.

Moreover, many furloughed employees will probably have to seek new jobs to make ends meet, Morris said.

"There are a whole slew of horribles" looming if the courts are shut down for a month or more, Menendez said. "It doesn't look pretty."

Reporter David Sommer can be reached at (727) 815-1087 or dsommer@tampatrib.com.

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