Brevard Clerk questions Tallahassee math on new bill

This article from the Hearald Tribune shows the outright lies being fought out in Tallahassee over the Judicial Pearl Harboring of the Clerks. The 33% increase in budgets is a joke. Our revenue this year is LESS than it was five years ago. Before we would use Recording Fees to help cover the courts, now those are greatly decreased.

Total Clerk Revenue (all functions) 2003/04: $22,214,701
Total Clerk Revenue (projected) 2008/09: $21,136,587

I’ll also repeat the obvious to anyone but the money hungry at OSCA. Court Administration in the 18th Circuit (Brevard-Seminole) manages about 20 people. The JAs and Staff Attorneys manage themselves. The two Clerk’s Offices manage 550. It would be interesting to see how they could handle the additional 550 after ‘shedding’ duplication. If any ‘duplication’ should be eliminated it should be Court Administration. When I was on the County Commission, Court Administration was three people plus the JAs and Staff Attorneys.

There has not been any release of any financial data outlining where all the savings are supposed to come from – it is “give us the job and trust us to save the money.”

As for Judge’s budgets up only 13% in five years, that is an outright fraud. In five years we have added five Judges and two Hearing Officers, an increase of 30%. As for “how much cash the courts are generating”, we are preparing charts of fines assessed, fines not assessed, and fines converted to community service. We are also looking to get community service not served. I would never say the Brevard County Clerk’s Office is perfect, but I will put our work ethic up against the courts any day of the week, even Friday afternoon.

If the Judiciary/OSCA position were sound they’d not have waited until the final month before the Legislative Session to launch it. It is just like a lot of people run political campaigns, throw out the dirt at the very end and hope a decision is made before you can get it all cleaned off.