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Pasco, Pinellas Courts Brace For Budget Cuts

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By Cheryl  Bentley | The Suncoast News

Published: February 20, 2008

NEW PORT RICHEY – Courts in Pasco and Pinellas counties are facing employee furloughs because of a budget shortfall, according to Judge Robert J. Morris Jr., chief judge of the Sixth Judicial Circuit.

Morris and the state's 19 other circuit chief judges met Tuesday in Tallahassee with the Senate's Appropriations Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Morris said during a news conference today at the West Pasco Judicial Center.

At the meeting in the state capitol the chief judges were told for the first time the committee would vote Thursday on a 4 percent cut in the court system's current budget, Morris said.

Judge Morris

The state's 2008 fiscal year ends June 30.

Florida lawmakers are making budget cuts in response to lower-than-expected revenue resulting from the slump in housing and other areas of the state economy.

Had the judges known about the spending cuts before this, they could have spread out the revenue loss across the budget year, Morris said. As things now stand, the cuts will have to be totally absorbed in May and June, he said.

Morris estimated the total revenue shortfall for courts in Pasco and Pinellas counties for the final two months of the fiscal year at $1 million.

The cuts would probably come in the form of employee furloughs, he said.

"We're 90 percent salary driven," said Morris. "That's what courts are – they're people."

The cuts would affect the circuit's 69 judicial assistants and 175 other employees. Employees to be affected include magistrates, hearing officers, case managers, staff attorneys and human resources staff, and accounting department staff.

Judges would not be affected because of a provision in the state constitution that bars reductions in judicial pay as long as a judge has not been guilt of misconduct, Morris noted.

Even with judges, courts could not get much business done without support staff such as the digital stenographers who record hearings, Morris said.

Although the proposed cuts are in the planning stages, Morris is already making a contingency.

"I'm going to assume they're going to happen," he said of the cuts.

His position is that although cuts are necessary, the courts can't absorb a 4 percent revenue loss in only two months.

Morris said he is asking for flexibility to determine how the cuts will be made.

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