State Senate and Judiciary Clobber Clerk’s Offices

Political, not Fiscal, Policy Drives 16% Cuts to Clerk’s Offices

The State Senate and the Florida Supreme Court, with the acquiescence of the Florida House, moved to make major cuts in the funding of local Clerk’s Offices during the final days of the Legislative session. In late February, well after the normal filing of bills for the Legislative Session had been completed, certain Legislators in ‘leadership’ positions late filed bills designed to remove the Clerk’s courts employees from the Clerk of Courts to the Judiciary. Along with the employees, current court fees and fines which now fund the Clerks would be diverted to the State to fund the Judiciary and the State general fund.

While the full court press was on by theSupreme Courts and its administrative arm, OSCA, to peel off the employees, and more so, the funding, the Legislature went instead for the self-fulfilling prophecy plan of cutting the Clerks by enough to ensure they would fail this year to better set the stage for the take-over next year. For Brevard County, we will end with about the same revenue as we had back in 2005 when we had 25% fewer Judges and Hearing Officers, 10% of the current foreclosure work load, and less expense on insurance and wages. Yet the Clerk’s Office, the public’s true door into the courts system, is being slashed in the name of guaranteeing the public’s access to the courts.

The Clerks as a whole began the fiscal year with $539 million in allowable expenses, with all other collections of court fees and fines going to the State. In January the Legislature pulled more of the fees to the State and the economy was clearly taking a toll on revenues, so in Brevard County we began cutting back expenses to meet what we projected to be a $800,000 shortfall in our planned $17.3 million budget. In late February another $500,000 reduction was imposed on our office and we continued cutting expenses with two small layoffs and reduced working hours.

During the Legislative Session the State Senate working in conjunction with the Judiciary managed to pull over the House version of the bills (the final week of the planned sesion) and took control of the changes with SB 1718 and SB 2108. While in late April we were looking at reductions of $54 Million to $65 million of the prior $539 million for all Clerks, by the time Monday May 4th arrived the reduction had been changed to $88 million, a total of $451 million.

The last $23 million had nothing to do with the State budgets, by this final ‘extra’ week the State budget was completed with all of its associated new taxes, and in an overall budget of $66 billion the $23 million made no difference. The real reasonfor the $23 million final additional cut was the State Senate was to set up the Clerk’s Offices for failure. We received our first 8% cut retroactively in February, and now this second 8% comes in our 4th quarter just as retroactively. Thus in our office we have an overall permanant reduction in 70 personnel to meet next year’s appropriation, as well as approximately 80 furloughs for the remainder of the Summer to balance this year in light of the two retroactive reductions. This is a permanant loss of 1/6 of the courts employees and a summer loss of 1/6 more.

Most frustrating to me has been the complete lack of work analysis of these Senate bills. Our office is very busy, we are not a permitting office somewhere without work. No effort was made to evaluate the costs of the courts system as a whole, studying the Clerks, Judges, State Attorney, Public Defender, and Sheriff, as well as the Florida Statutes, to see how the Courts could be revamped for costs savings. Numerous cost savings ideas presented by our office to the local judiciary have fallen on deaf ears.

While the session was ongoing I sent numerous messages to our State delegation. The House members at least read what I sent and gave me some contact, yet I was never contacted by phone or e-mail by our two State Senators. Bills are moving in Tallahassee which severely impact the Clerk’s Office and the Clerk in their own home county was not worth an e-mail of questions or comments. The overall impression I was getting was that ‘leadership’ in the House and Senate was pushing the bills, but what the heck do we vote to send our own Legislators to Tallahassee for?

They campaign like lions and then vote like sheep.

The majority of the Legislature will shortly find they have crashed Clerk’s Offices and access to the courts all over the State by allowing their ‘leadership’, in conjunction with the Judiciary, to drive the Clerk’s over the cliff. That may not be what was explained to them by their ‘leadership’, but for our Legislators I sent them full information on the ramifiactions of the bills and the impact of the cuts, both retroactive and forthcoming.

As an office we can adapt to declining economy and Judges waiving fines, even though our workload has not been reduced, but we cannot adapt to a willful and punitive reduction made without analysis or study whose underlying purpose is to set up the Clerks for failure. Next year the Legislature will convene and the Judges will come roaring in about the Clerk’s ‘inability’ to get the job done, completely ignoring said ‘inability’ is not by accident, but by design, of the bills passed this session by the State Senate and House.